


twelve stops and home

by encroix



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Light Angst, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-20 01:23:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4768268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/encroix/pseuds/encroix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The things you chase can trap you as much as the things you leave behind. </p><p>How Gaby and Illya chase each other, run from each other, and find each other in twelve movements.</p>
            </blockquote>





	twelve stops and home

  
  
  
_told me you loved me_  
_that i’d never die alone_  
_hand over your heart_  
_let’s go home_  
    -- **kings of leon, only by the night**

 

 

  
  
  
**istanbul, TUR**

 

  
  
She’s always hated packing. Even now.  
  
The routine of it is fine – little by little, things gently placed in their individual holders; single boxes to be placed into small pockets of space in separate bags – reminds her of breaking down a car. Everything built of smaller parts. Everything a puzzle.  
  
It’s the timing that throws her.  
  
She always packs too quickly. Call it a habit.  
  
Her hands shake as she tries to roll everything into small bundles, as she condenses items into necessities and leave-behinds. In war, everything is take or leave, do or die, stay or fight. Everything is an ultimatum.  
  
(Not everything is a war.)  
  
In East Germany, packed bags are kept underneath mattresses and standing beside doorways; there are coats jammed against furniture; less-ratty shoes resting by the doorway just in case.  
  
In case of war. In case of peace. In case of sleeping guards.  
  
Escape routes are hard to come by. You have to learn to take what you can get.  
  
So bags are packed, identities shifted and changed. There are new names to be learned, new stories, new faces to wear.  
  
The oversized sunglasses and engagement ring come off.  
  
A hat is pinned into place. A darker shade of lipstick applied.  
  
When she shuts the clasps of the suitcase, she leaves behind the noise of gunfire, of metal and glass crushing to pieces around her, of her body rattling against the ground. Leaves behind the last sight of a father. Leaves behind a checkpoint and a life colored in gray.  
  
And the moments she savors, the ones written in color – a white and orange striped dress, the bright smile of a little girl resting on the shoulders of her beaming proud father in a monochrome photograph tucked in a dingy workshop– these are packed away. These are hidden.

 

 

  
  
  
(In a picture frame in a workshop on an island, a father and a daughter grin on forever, their smiles wide and broad as the brim of her hat, always happy, always together.  
  
Nothing to be found of it in her smile now – slow and relaxed, stretching from corner to corner with a sleepy flirtatious quality. Not as honest as the little girl’s once was. Not as trusting.  
  
_Joie de vivre_ , Waverly called it, _or esprit de corps, something fucking… French and inscrutable._  
  
A white and orange striped dress, and the coolness of someone’s hands against her skin.  
  
These, like all other secrets, can only be smuggled out.  
  
Take it or leave it.)

 

 

  
  
  
Waverly meets her early at the hangar, clapping her once against the shoulder. In triumph or support, she isn’t sure.  
  
He doesn’t ask about what happened, about how she’s feeling, about anything.  
  
She likes that about him.  
  
He has never asked.

 

 

  
At least the rooms in Istanbul are an improvement. Dingier than the ones in Rome, but separate.  
  
She unpacks her bag carefully, cracks the windows to hear the hum of the city outside, and prepares for an early evening.  
  
It doesn’t matter. She sleeps little.  
  
The thin walls separating their rooms do little to blot the noise of Solo singlehandedly working his way through the entire housekeeping night shift, but the night passes quickly enough.  
  
Lying on her side, she stares out the window, watching the flickering movement of shadows against the brick, trying to summon the sound of rain in East Berlin to memory - the way it drummed against the cheap tin sheeting like a lullaby of tapping feet, a murmur of battle drums.  
  
Instead, she presses her legs together, running her fingers over the itchy bedspread as she tries to block out the noise.  
  
She does not think about the room on the other side.

 

 

  
  
  
They haven’t spoken of it since Rome. Haven’t had the chance.  
  
He’s been casing a known smuggling front for intel about the financiers of their would-be terrorists while she’s acquainted herself with one of their more well-known engineers rumored to be ripe for defection (Solo stuck with sourcing the ingredients necessary for this much-rumored, oft-threatened biohazardous gas, with maybe one or two spare moments and loose fingers for any particularly fine artwork he stumbles upon).  
  
Her head’s all business. Has to be.  
  
And if that means they can’t manage to stay in the same room long enough to pick apart whatever it is they started, that’s only a bonus.  
  
(Solo’s only aside on the matter: _guess the war isn’t the only thing on ice around here._  
  
Illya’s response – a grunt, followed by four steps and out into the hallway.  
  
She’s always appreciated his tact.)

 

 

  
  
  
She has a job to do.  
  
Everything else can wait.

 

 

  
  
  
The night she’s scheduled to meet with the engineer, Waverly calls just as she’s testing a third pair of heels with her dress. _Cat’s out of the bag, I’m afraid_ , he says, in his brisk disaffected accent, _We’re trying to determine if the tip’s genuine, but until we do, stay where you are. We wouldn’t want to have any accidents._  
  
_Understood_ , she says, because Gaby is a good soldier and an even better agent. She knows she’s on not-quite thin ice; the Vinciguerra assignment was hers, and it wasn’t clean – nothing requiring a hard rescue is – and nothing, not even the old man’s quiet affection for her, can keep her from being burned.    
  
Sometimes the only thing keeping you in the game is your ability to follow orders.    
  
_I’ll be in touch._  
  
So she toes off her shoes, takes down her hair, and switches on the radio. Nothing left to do but wait for further instruction.

 

 

  
  
  
Her second nightmare is enough to lead to her first drink.  
  
Her chest is tight, heart pounding out a punishing rhythm as the air cuts sharp and jagged in and out of her. She sprints towards her luggage, unzipping the compartments to access the hidden inner pocket.  
  
It takes her twenty seconds.  
  
An engraved silver flask pocketed out of Lisbon on a whim a few years ago. The engraving – _to I.L., with love._  
  
She’d never understood it -- who engraves a flask? A gesture so cheap and sentimental, she cringed to think of it -- but it held nearly fifteen ounces, which was more than enough reason to justify keeping it.  
  
Her hands shake so badly it takes her nearly an extra minute to unscrew the cap, but the sting of the first pull is worth it.  
  
“You drink too much.”  
  
She startles, twisting the cap back on as she tiptoes back towards the suite door. The light in the room makes it impossible to catch his reflection in the window. “I’m German,” she quips, inching another step closer.  
  
The low chuckle is enough to warn her who it is.  
  
He tilts his head in greeting when she turns to face him, and she sighs, sucking her teeth as she assesses him. A gun against his hip, another maybe tucked against his ankle. It tells her as much she needs to know – that it’s likely Waverly’s confirmed the threat and sent him as backup. As if she couldn’t neutralize any threat with all of her tools within reach.  
  
“Comrade,” she greets sarcastically. She loosens the cap and takes another pull.  
  
He’s slouching against the corner on the opposite side of the room in an attempt for distance, his hat pulled down far enough to cast a shadow over his face. It’s almost silly to see a man of his height try to look small.  
  
She returns the cap, throwing the flask in his direction.  
  
He catches it comfortably, opening it to wave its open mouth underneath his nose. “No, thank you,” he says, replacing the cap before tossing it onto a nearby armchair.  
  
She arches a brow. “I thought vodka was your national drink.”  
  
“I don’t drink when I work,” he says.  
  
“You aren’t at work,” she says. “Nothing was confirmed so you don’t actually need to be here right now.”  
  
His mouth tightens into a hard line. “Mmhm.”  
  
She sets her hands to her hips, mouth pursing with annoyance. Behind her, the radio on the bedside table pipes nothing but sedate waltz music.  
  
“No dancing?” he says, wryly. Clearing his throat then, he adds, more firmly, “No dancing.”  
  
She walks to retrieve the flask, drawing another long pull.  
  
When she closes her eyes, she sees a flash of a nightmare – a burning building, her foster mother’s quiet crying, glass splintering to pieces and showering down around her. She shudders.  
  
“You should try to sleep,” he says.  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
There’s no more talking after that.

 

 

  
  
  
She drinks her way through half the flask.  
  
The phone hasn’t rung once.  
  
Her eyes glassy and unfocused, she staggers around the room, the berth of her step cut wider, movements exaggerated and dramatic. Illya’s managed to busy himself and avoid talking to her altogether by cleaning his boots with a pocketknife and extraordinary attention to detail.  
  
She grunts, staggering towards the writing desk. His eyebrows raise but he says nothing else, just moves around her to give her the space to figure out where she’s going.  
  
(Trick question: she has no idea where she’s going.  
  
The answer is usually _out_ or _away_ , but none of those apply here.  
  
Sometimes she really does hate Waverly.  
  
And the job.  
  
And _Waverly_ , the Anglo bastard.  
  
Sometimes all she wants is just to crawl under a car again, to hear the noise of oil dripping into a pan, to breathe in motor oil and grease, listen to the noise of an ailing machine.)  
  
She sidesteps too far and her hip slams against the edge of the desk, rattling its contents. Bracing her arms against it to steady herself, she peers down at the wooden top, vandalized by various guests over the years. Carved in the corner sit a heart and initials, a name, a handful of profanities in three or four languages.  
  
She digs her thumbnail into one of the grooves of a letter.  
  
“This is fun,” she says. “Just like old times.”  
  
“I do not want to wrestle,” he replies, digging the blade into another tread of his boot.  
  
She scoffs, sinking down into the chair with a long sigh. The room tilts on its axis, wobbles a little.  
  
“Do you think they buried him?”  
  
The question slips out, quiet and serious as a knife to the throat. It’s a stupid thing to ask, she knows. Knew it the second it came out of her mouth.  
  
It’s a question children ask.  
  
Children, the only ones allowed to be needy and weak.  
  
“Forget it,” she says.  
  
A long silence masks itself as a pause and she stands, slowly cutting back around towards the desk.  
  
The flask slips free to clatter against the desktop.  
  
“How much does it matter to you?”  
  
She exhales, looking to the ceiling. The paint is faded and discolored, chipped in the corner from the remnants of a long-dried leak.  
  
It doesn’t matter. Hasn’t for years.  
  
Not since she was a child and a father disappeared for the first time.  
  
“It doesn’t,” she says. “I lost him before. Already.” She says this in German, and can’t remember if he speaks it well enough to understand or not.  
  
They all have their secrets. Languages, too, but this – the question of her father, of her strength in the face of his absence, of his absence itself – can only be discussed in German. She doesn’t owe her father anything, but maybe she owes him that. And Illya – they’ve already balanced the scales.  
  
Illya removes his hat, runs his hand through his hair. There’s a sigh that passes for a quick intake of breath.  
  
She doesn’t say, _nobody gets buried in a war._  
  
She doesn’t say, _it was better when I thought he just vanished._  
  
She’s sure he hears her anyway.  
  
He shifts his weight, crossing the small space to lean against the wall near the desk. Near her.  
  
His hands seem to tremble at his sides.  
  
He doesn’t touch her.  
  
“Is it better to know,” he says, softly, haltingly, “that he didn’t choose to?”  
  
Her mouth is dry, but she swallows anyway. His adam’s apple seems to bob in echo.  
  
“I don’t know,” she says. “What’s a choice?”  
  
She can’t read his expression, but his glance flits to the floor.  
  
They don’t need to say anything else. Already know for themselves how hard a question that is to answer, to escape.  
  
He reaches for the flask on the desk, gulping down a mouthful before proffering it to her. She takes it, answers with one of her own.  
  
They don’t talk any more. Only pass the flask back and forth, alternating sips until the whole thing’s finished.  
  
“Give me your knife,” she says.  
  
His face is blank, a practiced neutral, as he fishes it out from his boot, slowly and carefully unfurling the blade. She bites her lip, focused on keeping her hand steady as she takes it from him.  
  
In one hand, the flask. In another, the knife.  
  
He sighs as she digs the blade against the thin metal.  
  
“My father…” he begins.  
  
A single line cuts through the center of the engraved message. “Yes?”  
  
His eyes meet hers.  
  
The knife slips, nicking her finger near the joint. She swears, and he steps into her space, reaching for her hand with his own.  
  
His thumb brushes a feather touch across the cut. “It isn’t bleeding much.”  
  
She swallows. “No,” she says, “It’s shallow.”  
  
He traces a line from the cut to another scar on her palm. “Will heal,” he whispers. His eyelashes are dark, fanning out long and full as he surveys her hand.  
  
She sucks in a quiet breath. “Illya…”  
  
He glances up at her, expectant, thumb still drawing circles against her palm.  
  
The phone shrieks.  
  
He drops her hand.  
  
“That’ll be Waverly,” she says, as he moves to answer. The flask squeaks as she digs the knife in again.  
  
He nods.  
  
She carves a second line through before tossing the flask down onto the desk. Her hand is still warm from his careful touch, the cut already beginning to sting and itch. She digs her thumb against it, wishing she could still feel the warmth from the liquor. From another hand. From anything.  
  
She drives the blade hard against the wood of the desk, kneeling to peer at the way it trembles before it stills, crooked and tall in the desk like an overgrown weed.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**vienna, AUT**

 

  
  
For once, she isn’t the bait.  
  
The job seems straightforward enough - crash the honorable Baroness Schickendantz von dem Bussche-Haddenhausen’s annual seasonal gathering and fish out information on the money trail for an upstart group of Italian neo-fascists – until Waverly drops the most unexpected question at their mid-morning briefing.  
  
_Kuryakin_ , he says, _how’s your seduction technique?_  
  
Solo barely manages to avoid choking to death on his own espresso. _Are you sure he still remembers what goes where?_  
  
She bites down hard against the bed of her palm, but it does little good. The laugh still bursts out of her, sharp as a cackle.  
  
Illya crosses his arms over his chest and says nothing. After a beat, he turns on his heel and crosses out into the hall.  
  
Waverly raises his eyebrows, tapping a cigarette out of a pack. _Well, he doesn’t seem quite up to the job, does he?_  
  
_Overall_ , Solo says, _I think Peril seems rather receptive to the idea._

 

 

  
  
Invitations for the honorable Baroness’s annual fete are easier to obtain than most, but the window still leaves something to be desired. They have just under four days to prepare their tight-lipped dour Russian comrade into something closer to debonair gentleman, a task Solo gleefully codes the thirteenth labor.  
  
Illya has his legend all settled – visiting Russian military attaché Andrij Platov – but there’s nothing in his wardrobe or his suitcase that sells the air of nouveau riche and disillusionment necessary. She and Solo spend an afternoon sifting through the suits, all in varying dark shades, and find nothing worth salvaging.  
  
“I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do about it,” Solo says. “We’re just going to have to make an appointment for him.”  
  
“An appointment?” Illya says. “What appointment?”  
  
Solo doesn’t even acknowledge him. “You don’t mind if we take him to one of my salons, do you? They know me there.”  
  
She shrugs. “Be my guest.”  
  
“Salon?” Illya says.  
  
With a sly grin, Solo stands and paces the room. “Yes, a salon,” he says. “There’s several problems with the way this job is going right now, and there’s an easy solution for at least one of them.”  
  
The solution: Italian menswear.  
  
Illya growls with displeasure.

 

 

  
  
The appointment with the tailor doesn’t quite proceed as planned: Illya’s height is enough to give the tailor material for thirteen long-winded rambles in German about fabric shortages; Solo barely manages to entertain himself by irritating Illya; and her patience for playing referee between Solo and Illya, Solo and the matron clerk, and Illya and the tailor runs out somewhere between the first and second hours they’ve spent in the shop.  
  
“I really think you ought to give the satin a chance,” Solo says, pulling free a crushed velvet smoking jacket. “Ladies love something with a little gloss to it.”  
  
Illya’s brow twitches with irritation, lifting his arms to gesture when the seams of suit number fifteen (which had seemed so promising at the start) give a light ripping noise of protest. “No,” he says. “No satin, no silk, nothing _blue_.”  
  
He tries to move his arms just enough to loosen a button.  
  
Another tear.  
  
 “Too small!” he shouts, and the tailor squawks from behind a rack of jackets.  
  
“Now that’s just no fun,” Solo replies. “Don’t you want the lady Kraut to think fondly of you?”  
  
“Forget the suit,” Gaby replies. “How’s your German?”  
  
“Fine,” he replies, in easy German. “Or don’t you remember?”  
  
She shrugs and rattles off a quick reply, slurring her words to make it difficult. “Conversation is one thing, and seduction is another,” she says. “After all, who knows what kind of things she could share with you between…” She waves her hand vaguely. “In private.”  
  
He answers in a string of Russian and though her vocabulary is barely intermediate, she knows enough to pick out one or two words that are definitely rude. Whatever he says is enough to set Solo to grinning again, which she takes for confirmation.  
  
“You’ll never get the girl with that kind of attitude, Peril,” he says.  
  
The tailor returns with another, smiling weakly. “Maybe this one will finally be enough to cover both your arms and your feet, eh?”  
  
She clicks her tongue. “We’re waiting.”

 

 

  
  
Assignments like these are her least favorite.  
  
While the gala seems like it’ll be nothing but fun for Solo and miserable for Illya, it isn’t anything other than a bore for her. The Baroness herself is a large enough target, which means she and Solo are left to assume support duty. In short: keeping their noses down, doing as little to nothing as possible, and making sure Illya can get the information and get out without facing any kind of death or certain harm before he’s able to share that information with his superiors.  
  
All numbers and nearly none of the fun.  
  
And all because the Brits, Americans, and Russians have tired of playing _find the queen_ with laundered Fascist money.  
  
And here they are, waiting on suit number – twenty? Twenty-two?  
  
“How long can it possibly take you to put on a suit?” she grouses, sinking into one of the plush armchairs in the dressing room receiving area.  
  
He’s fussing with his cufflinks as he walks out, the tailor tutting and fussing with the measuring tape behind him like a child buzzing around a parent.  
  
She glances over him, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She’s seen him undercover before – in Rome, far more often than she wanted to – but somehow this feels different. The suit makes him look nearly delicate despite his intimidating size, drawing out the length and leanness of his frame, its deep black emphasizing the lightness of his eyes. The untied bow tie lying against the collar only draws her attention to his throat.  
  
Solo clears his throat. “This is the slate?”  
  
She blinks, shaking her head lightly to clear it as she reaches for the brochure.  
  
“The charcoal,” the tailor clucks. “Finest Italian wool. Best quality. Imported.”  
  
Solo hums as he scans Illya. “Turn around,” he says.  
  
“I will not.”  
  
 “I still think you ought to go with the blue satin.”  
  
“Then it is good I don’t care what you think.”  
  
“I think this will do,” she says to the tailor. Her eyes flick over the suit again, scrutinizing for any flaw. “Please ring it up.”  
  
“Well, the lady’s spoken,” Solo says. “Or, at least, _a_ lady has spoken, so if you wouldn’t mind hurrying it up, I spotted a very friendly barmaid who seems to be in need of a little friendly assistance.” And with that, he’s bouncing up onto his feet and tracking back into the waiting area.  
  
“He’s a child,” Illya replies with no real hint of irritation.  
  
She stands and approaches him, brushing her hands against the suit to smooth the fabric. Pressing her hands to his shoulders, she directs him to turn.  
  
He does. Once.  
  
Her fingers trail from the lapel to the hem of the jacket, testing the wool between her fingers.  
  
“Any problems?” he says.  
  
She glances up at him. “You still haven’t told me if you know how to dance.”  
  
He scoffs. “I dance enough for baroness.”  
  
 “If this falls through because of you…” she starts.  
  
“I’m a good agent,” he replies easily. “I can do my job.”  
  
“How long has it been since you’ve done something like this?” she says.  
  
“What?” he says, stepping closer. “Dancing?”  
  
She shakes her head. “No. Seduction.”  
  
“You’re going to test me?”  
  
She reaches up to tug lightly at the lapels of his suit before dropping her arms to her sides. “I’m trying to make sure that the job gets done.”  
  
He clicks his tongue, jaw working as he nods. “Fine,” he says, closing the distance between them.  
  
When his hand settles against the small of her back, she sucks in a quiet breath.  
  
“What are you doing?” she says. Standing this close to him, she can catch the faint scent of his aftershave and him, a combination of leather, soap, and something else she can’t place.  
  
“Auditioning,” he says, reaching down for her hand with his own.  
  
Leaning down, he draws her hand up towards his mouth, feathering the lightest of kisses against her knuckles.  
  
Her breath catches, teeth clicking on a stutter as she exhales.  
  
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last, Baroness,” he says in a heavily Russian-accented English. Then, in German, he adds, “I was unprepared for your beauty.”  
  
She feeds her stumbling breath into a mocking titter. “Oh, _comrade_ ,” she affects, placing distance between them. “Ease up on the compliments, and she’ll be more likely to take you seriously.”  
  
He shrugs. “She’ll be flattered.”  
  
“Exactly,” she replies. “It isn’t going to work.”  
  
“It’ll work.”  
  
She huffs a breath. “Fine,” she says, jerking her hand free of his grasp. “Try whatever you like. But Illya, if you want my advice…”  
  
He hums softly in answer, tilting his head.  
  
“Don’t shave tomorrow morning.”  
  
His eyebrows raise. After a beat, he asks, “The baroness?”  
  
“Yes,” she says, moving out into the waiting area. “Of course.”

 

 

  
  
  
The party is exactly what Gaby would expect – elaborate, overindulgent, and tacky. The waiters cart around flutes of pink champagne, fizzing and bright with color, and small hors d’oeuvres with the speed and determination of bomber planes, depositing one flute after another on her table to replace the ones she’s emptied.  
  
At this rate, all the Baroness was going to give her was a bad hangover, and the cards of three greasy mustachioed Italian men with unfortunately no clear connection to said Dirty Fascist Italian Money they were supposed to be tracking. As far as she could tell, anyway.  
  
Still, whatever kind of a time she was having, it must have been nothing to rival Illya’s. They had been there barely an hour when the strains of _ochi chernye_ had started, the Baroness’ single concession to their distinguished visiting foreign dignitary.  
  
Of the two times Gaby had spotted Illya so far, he had been locked into rigid dancing frame with the Baroness both times.  
  
Meanwhile, Solo seemed to disappear and reappear at will in various dinner jackets, none of which he actually owned, to slip her useless information or gift her useless objects – a socialite’s nearly-empty compact, a half-finished glass of champagne, a monogrammed handkerchief.  
  
On their last run-in, he’d only tugged the bodice of her dress down another inch and pushed her into a group of men with a murmured instruction to _get friendly with the fascists_.  
  
Just how she was meant to determine one set from another, she wasn’t quite sure.

 

 

  
  
After another hour, Solo emerges out of the crowd, colliding into her roughly as he sweeps them both out into the parade of dancing couples.  
  
“Did you find anything interesting?” he says.  
  
She huffs, blowing a stray piece of hair away from her face. “Not much,” she says. “Unless you count men thinking themselves much better at sneaking a feel than they are.”  
  
He winces. “The baroness’s young niece had some rather choice words.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Not many of them repeatable.”  
  
She cranes her neck and spies Illya and the baroness, sweeping in another round across the floor. “I hope he’s getting something useful out of her.”  
  
Solo glances at the couple and then back at her. “Why don’t we find out?”  
  
She blinks. “We can’t blow his cover.”  
  
“We aren’t going to blow anything,” he replies. “We’re just going to be unspeakably rude. But don’t worry, that’s the kind of thing I specialize in.”  
  
He leads her across the length of the dance floor, glancing off of several other couples on the way.  
  
“Being rude?” she says.  
  
“In a charming sort of way.”

 

 

  
  
  
As they breeze their way through the crowd, approaching the baroness at every step, the music suddenly halts. Solo ducks out at the last second, mouth splitting into an enormous grin as he calls the baroness’ name.  
  
She glances over, her face contorting into an expression of delight and surprise.  
  
“Devlin! I didn’t know you were coming! And I certainly don’t recall sending you an invitation, you dog!”  
  
He bows slightly, his smile dimmed enough to merit no show of teeth. “You know, the moment I heard you were in town, I just had to drop in,” he says. “You know how much I can’t avoid your little soirees, Elsa.”  
  
Behind the Baroness’ back, Illya mouths at her, “Elsa?”  
  
The baroness harrumphs. “And I suppose you dropped in through the kitchens, just like last time?”  
  
Solo shrugs. “I’d be quite upset if I left Vienna without seeing you once, my dear baroness, nor without having your hand in at least _one_ of the waltzes.”  
  
The baroness’ mouth twists into a sly smile. “You always were a tricky fox, Devlin,” she says, tittering. “Coming all this way without so much as a note.”  
  
“I wanted to surprise you,” he says. “Are you surprised?”  
  
At this point, she’s starting to believe there’s no one left on the transatlantic coasts that doesn’t know Solo in one alias or another.  
  
“Absolutely disgusted by it,” the baroness replies. “I’ll have them play another waltz for us.”  
  
Solo clicks his tongue, looking positively touched. “Just like old times.” Turning to Illya, he adds, almost as an afterthought, “You wouldn’t mind, would you? Just two old friends getting reacquainted, you understand.”  
  
The baroness waves a signal at the bandleader, murmuring, “No, of course he wouldn’t mind. He understands.”  
  
The corner of Illya’s mouth tics.  
  
“Oh,” the baroness says, “Besides, I’d like to introduce you to” – snapping her fingers – “Anne, please, come.”  
  
Gaby ducks her head, stepping towards them both. “Anneliese,” she replies, bowing her head delicately. “Baroness.”  
  
“An Austrian girl,” the baroness says, by way of introduction. “Those are as hard to find in Vienna nowadays as good cheese.”  
  
Illya bends at the waist in a deep bow before reaching for her hand. “It would be,” he intones gravely, “an honor.”  
  
With that, the band begins playing – for what must be the fifth time that evening – _ochi chernye_.

 

 

  
  
His hand is cool against the bare skin of her back as he guides them, the music quick and light in the background.  
  
“Have you found out much of anything?” she says.  
  
“That I dislike _ochi chernye_ much more than I remember,” he answers.  
  
She laughs, and the sternness in his expression lightens. “Has she made mention of where the money’s being hidden? Or how it’s passing through the country?”  
  
“We’ve spoken very little in such…open terms,” he replies, “but she’s mentioned a private island a few times. Says that she’d like to take me there.”  
  
She raises her eyebrows.  
  
“I told you,” he says. “It’s like riding a bicycle. Not something easily forgotten.”  
  
“You should tell that to Solo,” she says, smiling. “Now, what’s the island called? Does she own it?”  
  
He shakes his head. “I think the island is being used for shell,” he says. “She holds too much in investment. Maybe the entry point for the cash.”  
  
She tilts her head. “The hotels.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
Her mind begins running through the options. “Once we have the hotels, we can trace it back.”  
  
The music begins to slow then, building to a soft finish. As the couples around them pause to applaud, his hands skim down her back, lingering against her waist a beat before he joins in.  
  
She’s breathless, forcing a smile as the baroness and Solo make their way over.  
  
“Well?” the baroness chimes. “What did you think, Andrij? Austrian girls have the waltz bred into their blood!”  
  
“Like schnitzel,” Solo deadpans, his eyes sharp and curious as he eyes the two of them.  
  
Gaby knocks against him harder than necessary.

 

 

  
  
  
She’s in the middle of rolling a cigarette in her suite when a quiet knock sounds against the door. It’s midnight. Too late for anyone to be calling. She stills, silently moving to retrieve the small gun against her leg when he breezes in, jacket unbuttoned and open, bowtie untied and lying around his neck.  
  
“You couldn’t wait for me to answer?” she says, setting the gun down hard against the windowsill.  
  
“I like to pick the locks every once in a while,” he says. “Good practice.”  
  
Licking a line against the paper, she rolls the cigarette sealed. “The baroness released you?”  
  
“Just now,” he replies. “Tell Waverly I am not doing this again.”  
  
She reaches for the book of matches. “Try doing that every mission,” she says. “Now you know how I feel.”  
  
He glowers.  
  
Across the room, the small radio she has switched on rattles off the nightly news. He sinks into one of the armchairs as she exhales a cloud of smoke.  
  
“Did you find out the name of the island?”  
  
“Better,” he says. “She offered to take us out on the boat to see it personally. Her friend Devlin, and myself.”  
  
Her jaw drops. “Not me?”  
  
“Austrian ladies have no business running around with men alone on boats,” he says, “That’s what she says.”  
  
She laughs, shaking her head. “She just wants you both to herself,” she says. “Sneaky bitch.”  
  
He leans back against the chair with a quiet sigh, his hand massaging the back of his neck. A beat passes, and he doesn’t confess any other news. It’s late, she thinks, for the two of them to be here together.  
  
Some part of her might want him to stay, but not at the risk that it invites into her life. Girls who manage to sneak past walls tend to be careful about what they’re running to. The things you chase can trap you as much as the things you leave behind.  
  
And she has no intention of being left.  
  
Somewhere, there is a life waiting for her – a civilian life, full of idle leisure and gentleness.  
  
Maybe she’d even become one of those old women whose life is poured into their garden beds, tending to dahlias and daffodils. A lofty dream for a wretch of a girl from East Germany, but they all need goals.  
  
“You’re a better dancer than I thought,” she confesses between drags.  
  
He doesn’t answer.  
  
The stupid things one confesses when it’s late.  
  
No, not quite a confession. An admittance.  
  
“It wasn’t real,” he says.  
  
She nods. _None of it is real._  
  
“It wasn’t a real dance,” he adds a moment later. His eyes fix on her, sharp and intent in their focus.  
  
The remainder of the cigarette gets stubbed against the sill of the window. “What’s a real dance then?”  
  
He shrugs. “It’s…personal,” he says.  
  
She nods, turning her gaze out the window. “Fine.” Outside, she glimpses the silhouette of a neighboring church steeple in the sky.  
  
She wonders if the bells will chime at midnight.  
  
She loves the bells.  
  
In Germany, the churches seem nearly identical but the bells all seem to have their own personalities, their own songs. She could do without God, knowing everything that she knows, but the bells – it’s enough to make her miss home.  
  
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean – what I meant – stand up.”  
  
She blinks at him. “What?”  
  
He doesn’t repeat himself, just stands and proceeds to the radio to adjust the volume. The news anchor has since finished his broadcast, and the band is crackling their way through a slow jazz number, the piano sounding like its wires have been rescued direct from the front and never repaired.  
  
She stands and steps towards him, careful to maintain the measured distance between them.  
  
“Real dance tells a story,” he says, taking her hand in his and drawing her towards him. “It says things. About the music, about the people who dance.”  
  
One of his hands travels to her back, bracing against her as he leads her in a light standing sway. She never remembers how cool his hands can be, how rough the pads of his fingers are. Every time he touches her, it’s almost an entirely new experience.  
  
“Real dance,” he says, quietly, “is personal. Shared.”  
  
Her skin grows warm.  
  
He inches even further into her space, his thumbs lightly tracing circles against her skin. Testing the waters. Reassuring her.  
  
It’s unexpected.  
  
Solo plays games of chicken like this, walks to the edge to see how far down the drop is, but Illya? He learned to play the game the same way she did. Carefully. Skillfully. All while knowing just how far the drop is, how far away they stand from the edge. In a place like the places they grew up, there’s nothing but blind faith to steer you in the right direction; it isn’t the mistake that proves fatal, it’s the unwillingness to be constantly vigilant.  
  
_Alte Füchse gehen schwer in die Falle._  
  
_What are you doing_ , she wants to ask. Instead, “I used to dance.”  
  
He hums.  
  
Their swaying becomes small steps back and forth. A small movement in one direction.  
  
“You knew,” she says.  
  
“I suspected.”  
  
“Who told you?”  
  
He shakes his head. “No one.”  
  
“Then what?”  
  
“Strong ankles,” he says, flatly.  
  
She coughs a laugh. “If you didn’t want to tell me, you could say.”  
  
“During the war,” he begins, softly, his fingertips digging lightly against her skin, “when I was a child, I used to watch them. The dancing girls. In the ruins, holding to pieces of wall, pieces of fence, going through the exercises. As if nothing had changed. Even without anything to eat, they still…danced.” There’s a long pause. “I suspected when I saw you move. I knew when I saw your feet.”  
  
She steps closer to him, her hands sliding lower down his back. There’s no tension in the moment – not really – but she still feels nervousness flutter deep in her belly.  
  
It isn’t just the distance - they’ve been physically closer before, at least several times – but a weight in the air, a glimpse of the people they’d be if there weren’t such things as silly as wars, maybe. Something too honest to be hidden under a lie.  
  
He moves and she can feel the answering ripple of his muscles against her palm.  
  
“You’re a better dancer than I thought,” she repeats.  
  
His fingers gently brush against the ends of her hair as his hand urges her even nearer. She sighs, leaning her head against him.  
  
The radio fanfare chimes, signaling the end of the program, and she stills, pulling back to peer up at him from beneath her lashes. Her hand reaches to cup his face, the day-old stubble scratchy and coarse against her skin.  
  
“What’s the story?” she says.  
  
He murmurs something quiet, his forehead grazing against hers.  
  
“Say again?” she whispers.  
  
The door creaks.  
  
He leans in, his hands a gentle pressure against her back, his lips hovering just over hers, when something explodes, violently forcing the door open against the jamb and showering them in chunks of wood.  
  
They both crouch against the ground, bracing against the furniture for another attack when Solo breezes in, bottle of bourbon in one hand and his jacket in the other.  
  
“I would have thought you asleep by now,” Solo quips, unscrewing the cap of the bottle and taking a pull from the neck. “You two are just _full_ of surprises.”  
  
“ _Cowboy_ ,” Illya growls.  
  
“Oh, and by the way, someone left a butcher of an explosives job on this floor, so tell Waverly that we probably won’t be holding our deposit. Now, would either of you care for some bourbon?”  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
**amsterdam, NLD**

 

  
  
Illya has been to Amsterdam only once before – a trip with his father when he was younger, around seven or eight.  
  
He remembers little.  
  
While his father would work during the day, he spent his mornings largely unattended, watching the canals or the people passing through, just waiting for his father to finish.  
  
It had seemed like such an incredible place at the time.  
  
Now, there’s no place he hates returning to more. The waterways, the buildings, the bikes – everything reminds him of a summer day too many years ago, a hot cup of _frites_ and his father, boisterous and loud, tall and strong still.  
  
The city, as their hotel brochure loudly attests, is built of the old and the new, paying homage to history as it forges ahead.  
  
_The past is past,_ he thinks, _Nothing is worth reviving it._

 

 

  
  
  
  
They haven’t been given much information. The Dutch have been allies of good will, as far as he knows, and the ceremony is simply symbolic as a meeting between members of Parliament and members of the royal family, as far as he understands, but they’ve been dispatched for surveillance for the duration of the proceedings.  
  
How exactly all three parts of that sentence make sense is not his business.  
  
Taking the pictures is his business.  
  
He’s gratified when the first day of the meetings heralds their first clear day since arriving. Illya isn’t a superstitious man nor a religious one, but there’s something to be said for fortune. Fortunes change with the winds, arbitrary and meaningless, but good fortune can matter a great deal.  
  
A clear day yields better photos. What could be a better sign?  
  
Camping himself by the window, he’s careful to establish his sight lines, to check and double check to ensure that the photos will turn out as he intends them to.  
  
Solo is parked in the opposite corner of the room, headphones on, screening through the illicitly recorded content from their scattered dozen bugs in the church, scribbling notes every so often but being generously, gloriously, uncharacteristically quiet as he works, and Gaby…  
  
Well, Gaby has a pair of binoculars and a rather impeccably cultivated look of distaste on her face.  
  
“I _hate_ stakeouts,” she says, raising the binoculars to eye level to peer out one of the adjacent windows. “What a waste of time.”  
  
Solo winces, pressing his finger to his lips decisively.  
  
She grunts, rolling her eyes at him before returning the binoculars to her face.  
  
Since they’ve started their working partnership, he hasn’t heard her complain about much. It’s something he’s admired in her. She’s reserved and diligent, willing to do the work no matter how much she personally dislikes it.  
  
“Is not a waste of time,” he says, clicking off another three, four photos.  
  
She tilts her head at him, the binoculars held aloft with judgment. “Do you even know what we’re looking for?”  
  
He peers back out through the window. Inside the church, there seem to be an impressive number of men in suits standing and fanning themselves.  
  
“No,” he says. “I don’t need to know.”  
  
She grunts with satisfaction. “We could be looking for nothing,” she says. “And then I would be right that this is a waste of time.”  
  
Solo huffs as he pushes the listening gear off of his head. “If the two of you don’t mind pausing this incredibly dull conversation and resuming it later…”  
  
“See, chop shop girl,” he drawls, lifting one shoulder in acknowledgment, “now you are keeping Cowboy from doing his job.”  
  
She narrows her eyes at him, glowering. “I could break that camera.”  
  
He returns to the window, snaps another few shots. “Yes,” he says, “and then you’d need to actually watch what’s happening.”

 

 

  
  
Two hours later, they cycle. Solo’s on the camera, Gaby’s on the listening machine, and he has the binoculars. Changing stations hasn’t served to change her attitude at all. If anything, it only seems to rile her boredom more.  
  
The pencil between her fingers keeps drumming against the paper, _rat-a-tat-tat rat-a-tat-tat rat-a-tat-tat_ , in a way that keeps distracting his focus.  
  
If he were the kind of man to let things irritate him, he would be irritated.  
  
The Queen has only just arrived, but already his eyes are beginning to hurt from the strain and pressure of the binocular lenses.  
  
“Stop that,” he says.  
  
She doesn’t look up. The pencil keeps tapping. _Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap._  
  
He sets the binoculars down and stomps over to where she’s seated, setting his hand down forcibly on top of her own. She looks up with a small expression of surprise, though she does her best to hide it.  
  
“Stop,” he says.  
  
She jerks her hand free.  
  
“You want to know what they’re discussing?” she says, lifting up her sheet of notes. “What will be served at dinner.”  
  
“I can’t focus if you keep tapping your pencil.”  
  
She wrinkles her nose. “Don’t be a baby.”  
  
He narrows his eyes. “I mean it.”  
  
Rolling her eyes, she lifts her hand to her forehead in sarcastic salute before turning back to her listening post.  
  
“Danke schön,” he says, returning to the window.  
  
“Go fuck yourself,” she replies in stilted Russian.  
  
“You’re welcome,” Solo chimes.

 

 

  
  
Waverly crackles through on the receiver an hour later with revised assignment details – _surveillance on the church to be extended through until morning. site may be used for extrajudicial action. maintain radio contact._  
  
Gaby lowers her head into her folded arms and screams.  
  
Solo grins, cracking his gum. “So, how do we all feel about raw herring?”  
  
Illya shakes his head.  
  
“Waffles and _frites_ then, like the boorish tourists that we are?”  
  
Gaby pushes herself up to standing, disentangling herself from the listening equipment. “We’re changing stations,” she announces. “I’m taking a walk, and I’m taking the camera.”  
  
“Then I have the same station as before,” Illya says.  
  
“Fine,” she huffs. “Then you take the camera and I will take the binoculars and go for a walk.”  
  
Snatching the set of binoculars from his hands, she turns on her heel and marches out.  
  
“You know, Peril,” Solo says, “someone watching might say that you let her walk all over you.”  
  
He snorts. “What would you know about it?”  
  
“At this point,” Solo says, “far more than I’d actually like to. Now, what do you want to eat?”

 

 

  
  
Solo’s still out buying their food when she returns, holding a paper dish with some kind of bratwurst piled on it in one hand and a half finished can of beer in the other, glowing with joy.  
  
“Where is he?” she asks around a bite of food.  
  
“He had the same idea you did,” he says, gesturing at her plate.  
  
She extends her hand, tilting the fork in his direction in offer.  
  
He saws off an end of sausage and pops it in his mouth. “How much have you had?”  
  
She shrugs, taking another gulp. “It’s beer,” she says, waving her hand. “Like drinking water.”  
  
“Can’t have you falling asleep on the job like last time,” he says, handing her back the dish of food.  
  
“Last time,” she says, spearing another piece, “wasn’t a job. Last time was a mistake.”  
  
He recalls the weight of her pinning him to the ground, the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her pajamas, the way her hair brushed against him as she leaned down to meet him –  
  
He chews the bite, swallows. “Eat,” he says. “And then we should get back to work.”

 

 

  
  
  
Three a.m., and from his vantage point through the window, Illya can see faint stirrings of light in the church, though much of it too has gone dark.  
  
Solo has his head propped up against his hand, listening to the most recent batch of recordings again and reevaluating his notes. Whenever his eyes droop, he pulls free a small stopper from his inside jacket pocket and dabs two drops on the end of his tongue. Whatever it is seems to be enough to keep him running.  
  
Illya – and his KGB handlers – have nothing similar. He only has his camera and the dregs of a cup of coffee ordered hours ago. With a quiet yawn, he stretches and pulls himself up to standing, pacing the width of the small room. His joints pop as he moves, and he rolls his shoulders to try to relieve them of tension.  
  
A walk will suit.  
  
Besides, it will give him different perspectives to case around the church. New angles to shoot from.  
  
As he reaches for his jacket, he hears a quiet groan.  
  
“Where are you going?” Gaby whispers, voice raspy with sleep.  
  
He glances at her lying curled against the corner, hair mussed, skirt of her dress raked up to mid-thigh. The camera knocks against his leg harder than he intends. “A walk,” he says. “I’m going to try to get some new photos of the church.”  
  
“Right now?”  
  
“No one’s on the street,” he says. “It’s the safest time.”  
  
“Unless they’re watching you,” she says. “I’m coming with you.”  
  
He opens his mouth to argue and she arches a brow, pressing her hands to her hips. If they don’t hurry, the dawn light and rising newspaper vendors will leave them little time.  
  
He sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Hurry up.”

 

 

  
  
  
The streets are near deserted; golden-orange light spills out from lampposts scattered throughout the plaza, drawing it inviting, if a little eerie. Gaby walks alongside him, trying to match him stride for stride despite the difference in their height, hovering so close that she sometimes brushes against his side.  
  
With his camera in hand, they cut a slow arc around the side of the building, stopping every dozen feet or so for him to snap off another few frames.  
  
“Illya,” she says, as he kneels for another shot at the lower-level windows.  
  
He glances up.  
  
“You really think they’re going to be able to use these photos?”  
  
He peers through the viewfinder. “They asked me to do this,” he says, clicking off several photos. “I do what I’m asked, and I do it well.”  
  
“But don’t you think…” she begins.  
  
He drops the camera down from his face, turning to look at her. “What?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Let me know when you’re finished,” she says. “We’ll keep walking.”

 

 

  
  
They gradually shift towards the rear of the building. There’s stronger breezes coming off of the river here, he assumes, as Gaby’s shiver grows from subtle to directly noticeable. It’s thin, sleeveless – a summer dress.  
  
He hands her the camera to hold.  
  
“What are you doing?” she says.  
  
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he shrugs out of his jacket and holds it out to her. “Take it.”  
  
She glances down at his hand gripping the collar, considering.  
  
“You’ve been shivering,” he says. “A good agent knows when to accept help when offered by a verified ally.”  
  
She takes the coat from him. He reaches to take the camera back. Their fingers brush.  
  
“Is that what you are?” she says, her voice dipping low. She slips the jacket on. “An ally?”  
  
It’s far too large for her, the sleeves hanging down past her hands, but she pulls the jacket across to cover herself with a comfortable sigh.  
  
“Enemy of my enemy, then,” he says.  
  
She crooks her index finger at him with a smile. “That’s friends!”  
  
“Keep walking in straight line, chop shop girl,” he says, with a small smile. “Wouldn’t want you to fall in the river.”

 

 

  
  
  
  
He’s kneeling, snapping photos of the service entrances and gates and windows when he feels the pressure of her hand tense on his shoulder.  
  
In the distance he can see the unsteady bob and dip of a white light careening in a pattern. A patrolman or guard, most likely. “I can take him out,” he says.  
  
“Wait,” she says. “I have an idea.” She knocks his hat off of his head, her fingers running through his hair to muss it up. “No need to make a scene.”  
  
Reaching for his hand, she pulls him towards the rear wall of the church, pulling him into her until he’s bracing his arms on either side of her, body hovering entirely too close to hers for his own comfort.  
  
Her fingers go to work on her own hair. “Okay,” she whispers, craning her neck around the corner to try to see. “Is he coming?”  
  
Illya glances to the side and sees the swath of light approaching.  
  
“Just hum,” she says.  
  
He hums in answer.  
  
“Can you hold me up?”  
  
He blinks at her.  
  
“Just yes or no.”  
  
He hums.  
  
“It’ll help to sell the whole thing,” she says, “if we do it this way. Hold me against the wall.”  
  
His hum this time, even to his own ears, sounds lower, needier. She loops her arms around his neck, stepping on his feet as he wedges his legs between hers.  
  
“Ready?” she says. “ _Roz_ und _dva_ …”  
  
On three, she jumps up, wrapping her legs around his waist as he presses her back against the wall to help hold her upright. She’s breathing hard from the effort or the adrenaline, he isn’t sure, and he can feel the rhythm of her breathing against his skin, her fingers playing nervously at the base of his hairline.  
  
“Okay,” she whispers, leaning close to his ear, “Good.”  
  
He hums.  
  
She cranes her head, tucking it slightly against his neck until he can feel her hot breath against his throat.  
  
He swallows hard, the muscles in his body tense.  
  
“Are you all right with this?” she whispers, blinking up at him. When he meets her gaze, she drops her own towards his mouth.  
  
This is not typical protocol.  
  
“Shouldn’t be long,” she says, a little breathlessly, and he shakes his head lightly to clear it. His mind needs to be focused.  
  
He cannot fail his training.  
  
Leaning close, his lips brush against her hair as he murmurs, “I see him coming.”  
  
She shivers.

 

 

  
  
  
The white light is brighter than he thinks – it drenches them both instantly before being followed by the high, sharp noise of a policeman’s whistle.  
  
“What do you think you’re doing here?” the guard barks.  
  
Gaby pats him twice on the shoulder, coloring with embarrassment, as he lets her down to the ground gently.  
  
Brushing down her skirt, she approaches with a sheepish smile. “Officer,” she says, in accented English, “I’m so sorry, I thought maybe we could come and take pictures…”  
  
“You have to clear out of here,” the guard says.  
  
“…we love the church, very romantic, and Sergey has only just proposed, and…”  
  
“Ma’am,” the guard intones. “You aren’t listening. You need to clear the area.”  
  
She reaches for his hand, snatching the camera free. “Would you mind just taking a photo of us? Maybe by the lamppost?”  
  
The guard shakes his head twice. “Miss…”  
  
She runs up to the guard, smiling, patting down her hair. “Please, sir?”  
  
He sighs, drumming his flashlight against his leg in thought. “You have to clear out of here as soon as I take it,” he says. “It’s against policy.”  
  
She holds up her hands. “We promise, we absolutely promise.” And with that, she’s handing the guard the camera and he’s wondering what he’s going to tell his handlers when they realize he’s being outmaneuvered by an East German mechanic who’s defected.  
  
She drags him to the lamppost then, climbing half on top of it before the guard chides her down. The guard switches the camera on, and the lens springs open.  
  
“I just hit the…”  
  
“Yes, just hit the button,” she says.  
  
Looping her arms with his, Gaby springs onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek.  
  
The flash goes off.

 

 

  
  
  
“I hope that didn’t surprise you too much,” she says as they pass back in front of the church.  
  
He shakes his head. “You were thinking quickly.”  
  
 “You’ll develop the prints before you send them back to C3, right?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“So leave that one out.”  
  
“Camera, please.”  
  
She extends it towards him. “Don’t trust me?”  
  
He takes the camera, slips it into his pocket. “No more vacation photos, _liebchen_ ,” he replies.  
  
She wrinkles her nose, shaking her head with a laugh. “My grandmother used to call me that. No, no, no.”  
  
He smiles. “Fine. _Lyubimaya_. Satisfied?”  
  
“Never,” she says.

 

 

  
  
  
(He makes one print from the negative.  
  
Her mouth pressed to his cheek, feet arched in a practiced demi-pointe, eyes turned towards the camera, wrinkled at the corners from laughter. His coat hangs off of her small frame, her knees just peeking out from underneath.  
  
He’s faintly smiling, the corners of his mouth turned upwards, his eyes watching her.  
  
The people in the photo look happy – no, more than happy, somewhere closer to giddy and reckless, the way all couples do at the beginning. The people in the photo seem comfortable and familiar, as if they’ve navigated around each other for most of their lives and have only just decided to set out together.  
  
He hopes they have a future – the people in the photo.  
  
Whoever they are.)  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
**athens, GRC**

 

  
  
The fiancés have gotten married – or, at least, they have by the time they fly out to Greece. The engagement ring is replaced with a single gold band on her third finger, and one on his to match; UNCLE has chartered use of a private boat for the duration to help ferry them between islands; and for once, they aren’t working alone.  
  
The objective: locate and recover the Lansing-Alberta Five, a group of American and Canadian military scientists working on new stealth bomber defense technology who have the unfortunate luck of being taken hostage. The goal is to retrieve them alive, if possible, or to neutralize – no, the language now is _minimize_ – the threat of exposure should that prove impossible.  
  
This is a matter of the gravest national security, their brief notes in bold underline.  
  
For whose national security, Illya wants to know.

 

  
  
Those are not his answers to demand.  
  
To work in this business requires knowing one’s place in the scheme of things. If he’s lucky, one day the work he puts in will add up to some kind of complete picture of the state of the world, but he doesn’t expect to see it.  
  
Doesn’t expect much.  
  
It’s the only way to make it out alive.  
  
Their instructions are these: a dead drop (Solo), an undercover meeting with the deeply-embedded MI-6 primary (Kuryakin, Teller), and a black bag (Solo, Kuryakin, Teller).  
  
Their contact: Elena Turturra as Sofia Tsipras, socialite turned showgirl turned art photographer, renowned for her themed parties and inability to abstain from extramarital affairs.  
  
The invitations have been forged, wedding bands embedded with tracking technology, legends exchanged and memorized.  
  
“I met you while you were attending university in Germany,” Gaby says, scanning the dossier. “We were part of the same introductory calculus class.”  
  
“I asked you to marry me in Paris,” he says. He whips the packet against his leg in exasperation. “Paris?”  
  
“It’s in France,” she replies.  
  
“ _Danke_ ,” he deadpans. “Why would anyone propose in Paris?”  
  
“It’s romantic,” she says.  
  
“It’s _easy_.”  
  
She twists the band around her finger. “So where would you have liked to have proposed, then?”  
  
He tilts his head. “The Alps,” he says, after a beat. “While waiting for the sun to rise. On a carriage ride…” His smirk gives him away.  
  
“ _Arschloch_ ,” she says.

 

 

  
  
The house is enormous, constructed in a classical style with modern amenities and architectural touches that make him rue the career choice he’s been assigned. A Soviet architect could speak knowledgeably, could compare the styles to other prominent Soviet architectural works, and advocate for the improvements Soviet architecture would cast on the property.  
  
Meanwhile, he has two pages of notes in his own handwriting, some of which he can’t even decipher.  
  
“Just don’t talk to anyone who asks you to tell them about the building,” Gaby says as they ascend the front set of stairs into the house.  
  
He huffs. “Do you doubt…”  
  
“I remember the 60-year-old woman who gave birth to her annoying son,” she replies. “So I think we ought to leave the buildings discussion for more gullible people.”  
  
He snorts. “Fine.”

 

 

  
  
Sofia is certainly an easy woman to spot. Bedecked in stiletto heels, she stands over six feet tall, her face thin and angular, arresting in its symmetry, her long dark hair pulled back into a chignon. As she floats around the foyer forcing highball cocktails onto her guests with a friendly unwavering cheerfulness, the iridescent gown she’s wearing seems to turn transparent at certain turns in the light.  
  
He stills on the stair for a moment at the sight of her.  
  
Gaby elbows him hard in the ribs.  
  
Sofia spies them then, smiling and waving magnanimously as she approaches. “Sergey!” she calls, familiarly. “And _this_ must be the magnificent Gabrielle I’ve heard so much about.”  
  
Gaby forces a smile, slipping her arm around Illya’s back as she extends her other hand for the woman to shake. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”  
  
Leaning in, Sofia presses a kiss to both of her cheeks before turning to Illya to do the same. “Circulate,” she whispers between kisses. “And meet in ninety. Garden fountain.” Her hand reaches for Illya’s, the thin fingers lingering on the forearm as she gives him a gentle squeeze. “And, darlings, we _must_ find time to catch up.”  
  
Illya runs a hand through his hair, his smile slight. “We must,” he repeats.  
  
Gaby lifts a highball off of a passing tray, downing it quickly.  
  
Sofia merely raises an eyebrow.  
  
“German,” Illya says, by way of explanation.  
  
Gaby rocks the glass in her hand, hears the clink of the ice against the side. “Bourbon.”

 

 

  
  
  
By the time they manage to creep out into the garden, Gaby’s had four drinks. Cheeks flushed and speaking slightly manic but otherwise fine.  
  
The garden has been trimmed with small lights and lanterns, casting a warm glow throughout the open space. Everywhere they look, they can see couples, dancing without music, embracing in the hedgerow. Sighs echo from every direction.  
  
Gaby presses herself harder against his side as they stumble down the stone steps towards the illuminated fountain, small dancing cherubs spitting founts of water into an open pool.  
  
“Please,” he says. “No _La Dolce Vita_.”  
  
She huffs. “Anyone tell you you’re no fun?”  
  
Sofia emerges from the shadow of the hedgerow then, waving them towards her. “We don’t have much time,” she says, beckoning them to follow.  
  
“A fine time to be cryptic then,” Gaby grouses.  
  
“Kuryakin,” Sofia says, “I have a packet for Kuryakin.”  
  
Illya steps towards her, retrieving the manila packet from her grasp and tucking it inside his jacket pocket. “We were told to arrange a meeting with you. Do you have any news on the status of the Five?”  
  
“Whatever you do, you need to be careful,” Sofia says. “May need to make sure you aren’t being followed.”  
  
“We know how this works,” Gaby says.  
  
Sofia glances at her once, nodding in acknowledgment. “Deliver the packet to Uncle,” she says, “and tell him that the chestnut mares are thirty-seven to the dollar.”  
  
Illya nods once.  
  
“They’ve been keeping the scientists here on the island?” Gaby says.  
  
Sofia shrugs. “Not that I’ve found out,” she says. “You’ll be able to get more information from the cassette your man is picking up. I heard they were being kept in a wine cellar, but not on this estate.”  
  
“So what’s the next step?” Gaby says.  
  
“Follow the money,” Sofia says. “What else?”  
  
“Is that all you have for us?”  
  
Sofia purses her lips, glancing behind her once. “A joint task force between SIS, the KGB, and the CIA raises some eyebrows. You’ve been attracting far more attention than you’ve been made aware of.”  
  
“We’ll be careful,” Gaby says. “We’ve been in this business a long time.”  
  
Sofia steps closer, reaching to grasp Illya’s arm, squeezing it gently. “I’d watch myself if I were you.”  
  
He nods. “Understood.”  
  
“It would be such a shame,” she says, drawing her hand up to brush lightly against his cheek, “if we had to lose such a young talent.”  
  
He chuckles, the noise low and wry, and her hand lingers. Beside him, Gaby sighs with impatience, her feet shuffling restlessly against the pavement.  “Am not quite so young.”  
  
Sofia tilts her head down, smiles. The lamps cast a warm glow across the tops of her cheeks.  
  
Gaby clears her throat. “We ought to return to your party. Wouldn’t want to get burned.”  
  
“Of course,” Sofia says. “Take the back stairs. I’ll see you on your way out.”  


 

 

  
As they exit the party, Sofia embraces Gaby warmly. Dry kisses brush against her cheeks. “ _Kalinykhta_ ,” she says.  
  
“Pleasure seeing you, as always,” Gaby returns.  
  
Her embrace with Illya lasts several moments, her hand pressing something into his jacket pocket. She kisses the corner of his mouth, whispers a long comment to him in Russian.  
  
Gaby stares at them openly, digging her nails hard into his hand as she leads him away. “Having a fun time, husband?”  
  
Reaching in his pocket, he finds the slip of paper, worries his thumb against its edge.

 

 

  
  
  
Three a.m., and the three of them start turning the Greek finance minister’s summer home office upside down. Gaby’s rifling through the filing cabinets, Solo cherry picking his way through the safes like a child on vacation.  
  
He has a miniature camera in hand, snapping photos at will.  
  
The camera clicks as he snaps another picture, and Gaby growls with frustration, pushing over a file cabinet in her anger.  
  
“Anything the matter?” he says.  
  
She tosses her head dismissively, and doesn’t answer.  
  
“If you don’t want to say, then don’t,” he says, “but stop making so much noise.”  
  
The file cabinet drawer slams so loudly he’s surprised it doesn’t fling through the wall.  
  
“No one’s here,” she grumbles. “We’re in Greece so the nearest neighbors are a mountain and an island away, and you’re trying to tell me to _quiet down_?”  
  
Solo ducks into the office, gold pocket watch chains dripping from his fingers like stalactites. “How are we doing?”  
  
Illya lifts his head from a folder of unaudited financial statements. “She’s making a lot of noise.”  
  
Gaby tears a report out of one of the bound files with a rough jerk, the brads breaking free to ping against the desk. “While I’m sure that there are things – and people – that you would much rather be doing,” she mutters, “that still doesn’t give you any right to criticize how _I_ do a job. Don’t forget how _I_ played _you_ when we first met you.”  
  
He furrows his brow, tilting his head as he surveys her. “I don’t forget anything.”  
  
“So you do what you’re supposed to, and I’ll do what I’m supposed to, and then you can fuck off to…wherever you want,” she replies. A string of rapidfire German follows, all muttered under her breath.  
  
“Peril,” Solo says, “what _exactly_ did you do?”  
  
“Nothing,” he says.  
  
“Nothing,” she repeats.  
  
“All right,” Solo says. “Nothing it is.”  


 

 

  
After they finish that night, Gaby and Solo both disappear, leaving him to puzzle over his thoughts with a chessboard and a double of vodka for sipping.  
  
He doesn’t like to drink on the job, but after? Nothing helps him to collect his thoughts more than the light touch of a fine vodka right on the tongue. He is his father’s son. His nation’s citizen.  
  
He pulls the note from the pocket of his jacket, unfolds it and reads it, refolds it and tosses it on the desk. He sips and thinks, makes a move and thinks, checks himself and thinks and checks himself again.  
  
Gaby stumbles into the room an hour later, shoes in one hand, a bottle of ouzo in the other, still nearly full.  
  
“I thought you would have finished that by now,” he says.  
  
Her hand reaches up towards her hair, flicking gently. “Oh,” she says, wrinkling her brow. “I finished one at the bar already.”  
  
“What are you looking for?”  
  
“My sunglasses,” she says.  
  
“You weren’t wearing them earlier.”  
  
“Oh,” she says. “Right.”  
  
Waltzing over towards one of the twin beds, she flops down, her feet kicking up clumsily. “So did you go to see our lovely little comrade? Had a perfectly good… _reconnoiter_?” She punctuates the sentence with the violent removal of the ouzo bottle cap, taking a messy pull. It spills from the corner of her mouth down her chest, but she seems perfectly composed otherwise.  
  
He moves towards her, the slip of paper in his hand. “No,” he says, kneeling on the floor by the foot of the bed. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”  
  
Her shoes drop down on the carpet beside him, one foot raising to push against his shoulder with a quiet threat.  
  
He extends the note out to her.  
  
“What is this?” she says.  
  
“This is what she slipped into my pocket as I was leaving,” he says.  
  
She takes it with a look of disgust, shoving the ouzo bottle hard into his chest in return. Opening it, she stares at its contents for a long while before folding it up again.  
  
“It’s a phone number,” she says.  
  
“Yes,” he says.  
  
“ _Her_ phone number?”  
  
“Yes,” he says.  
  
“Well?”  
  
“Well what?”  
  
“Are you going to call her?”  
  
“I’m giving it to you,” he says. “You can do whatever you want with it.”  
  
She opens the slip of paper again, stares at the handwriting. “Why are you doing this?”  
  
“Enemy of my enemy,” he says. “That’s what you are to me.”  
  
“You’re giving this to me?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“To keep,” she says.  
  
“To keep,” he confirms.  
  
She kicks her feet lightly, her ankle grazing against his side. “Why would you do this?” she says.  
  
“You’re my friend,” he says after a pause. “You matter.”  
  
His knees ache from the pressure of his weight, but he can’t bring himself to move. Not yet.  
  
She takes a shaky inhale, lifting her eyes from the movements of her feet to his face. Opening her mouth to say something, she closes it almost immediately, her forehead wrinkled with dissatisfaction.  
  
He understands – the words are difficult to find on a good day, even worse in important times like these.  
  
If he’s said something wrong, he should go.  
  
He should.  
  
“Illya,” she says.  
  
He doesn’t answer.  
  
“Illya,” she whispers.  
  
She leans forward, her gaze flicking down, the small shadows from her eyelashes fanning out across her cheek like small cuts. Her lips brush against his cheek in a soft kiss, lingering for a moment before pulling away.  
  
Her perfume hangs in the air between them.  
  
“Thank you,” she whispers.  
  
“You should sleep,” he says. “I’ll bring a glass of water.”  
  
She nods, clambering further up onto the bed to lie on her side. “I’ll wait here,” she says, with a light yawn.

 

 

  
  
  
When he returns, she’s already asleep, the note crushed into a ball in her hand.  
  
He leaves the glass of water resting on the nightstand, pulls the cover up over her shoulders.  
  
He doesn’t watch her sleep.  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
**copenhagen, DNK**

 

  
  
They’re dispatched to stew at a safe house for three weeks, while C3 processes the paperwork for their next mission. Solo uses the time as only he would, deciding instead to travel to Barcelona for several weeks of much-needed recuperative leisure time.  
  
Gaby does what she’s told.  
  
She stays in Denmark, sees the sights, samples the local fare. Even goes to visit the statue of the mermaid.

 

 

  
  
  
She finds a dance studio, lies herself into the opening class like she’s fourteen again and hungry to prove herself. The ballet master there just waves her in, acknowledging her with a slight nod.  
  
_Injured_ , she lies, _trying to get back into shape for auditions in the spring._  
  
There’s a spot at the barre beside girls fourteen and sixteen, a third her size. She has a pair of shoes that haven’t been broken in, tights lifted from someone else’s locker.  
  
The steps feel the same way they always did: comforting in their structure, demanding in their rigidity, exacting in their demand for perfection.  
  
There is no absolute best in dance, only the attainable height of the day, the class, the school. There is no lying, only the body and the things it knows how to say, the ways it learns how to speak.  
  
Dancing has been the only space where she has ever felt open. Truthful.  
  
She raises her leg and wishes she had the strength to raise it even higher; her teacher knows this, her leg knows this too.  
  
There is no faking through the pain.  
  
She likes that, likes to know that she isn’t just the things she says, the people she pretends to be. In here, she is Gaby; in here, she is this pair of legs, this set of footwork, the roundedness in her port de bras.  
  
In the mirrors, she can see all of what she is: no more, no less.

 

 

  
  
She runs into him as she’s returning from class. Her key, stuck in the lock, refuses to turn, despite her nimble attempts to jiggle it open. She’s covered in sweat, her hair tied back into a tight knot at the top of her head.  
  
“Enjoying the open time?” he says.  
  
She startles, turning to face him with a sheepish smile. “If Solo can have a little fun,” she says, “there’s no reason why we can’t.”  
  
His expression remains the same.  
  
“And what have you been doing?” she says. “Working?”  
  
He wipes at his mouth with his hand. “Something like that,” he says.  
  
The key finally manages to turn, the door creaking open. Turning back to glance at him, she’s struck again by his height, his build, his lightness of step. She almost wishes they needed to be undercover here; she would welcome any chance to dance with him.  
  
A man who thinks he knows how to lead is commonplace; a man who can is a rarity.  
  
“Gaby,” he says.  
  
She stills. “Yes?”  
  
His fingers tense against his palms, nearly clenching but not quite. He glances at the hinge of the door. “Tomorrow…” he begins.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
His jaw tightens. Shaking his head, he adds, “Never mind.”  
  
She forces a smile. “Enjoy your time, comrade,” she tries in Russian.  
  
He coughs a laugh. “You’re improving,” he says, after a pause. “Slow, gradual improvement is the key to progress.”  
  
“Fuck you,” she replies, in Russian.  
  
His Russian is quick, without accent. “Now that,” he says, “is perfect. No mistakes.”

 

 

  
  
  
When the studio turns out to be closed the following day, she takes her bag of dance equipment and wanders from school to school in search of another.  
  
She follows a rowdy group of contemporary dancers into a nearby building, trickling down a set of stairs behind them to find a floor full of studios and practice rooms. Some are already echoing with piano music, some of the pieces halting and unfinished, others polished and refining.  
  
The doors to the studio spaces are all taped with paper indicating the day’s reservation schedule, and she wanders back and forth down the same series of hallways, trying to find one unlocked and available.  
  
As she doubles back towards the elevators, she collides right into someone.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says as the man stoops to collect loose pieces of paper from the floor.  
  
She bends down, helping to gather a few pages herself before standing and holding them out to him.  
  
“Thank you,” he says.  
  
She blinks at him as she sees recognition cross his face. He flushes, the tips of his ears turning the slightest shade of pink.  
  
“Illya?” she says.  
  
He tries to jerk the sheets of paper out of her hands, but she sidesteps him, ducking against one of the water fountain alcoves to reorient the pages into something that looks remotely legible. The ink on the paper still looks wet, the scribbled writing across the top definitely his.  
  
“What is this?” she says, peering at the writing.  
  
He doesn’t answer, simply holding his hand out to her for the remaining pages.  
  
“What do you play?” she says.  
  
He frowns, yanking the pages from her grasp and shuffling them back in with the others. “Piano,” he says.  
  
“Piano,” she repeats. He crosses his arms over his chest, drawing his height away from her. She’s seen him uncomfortable in many situations, but this is different. Personal. Like she’s seen a part of him he never intended to place on display. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”  
  
“I thought you took classes elsewhere,” he says. “If I had known…”  
  
“The studio was closed today,” she says. “I was just trying to look…”  
  
They fall into another silence.  
  
“I didn’t know you played,” she says.  
  
“Before I was recruited, I did,” he says. “But there is no future for a musician from a poor family. A _shamed_ family.”  
  
She nods once. In the state orphanage, there was no future for her in dance either. These are the small secrets to be kept from the state, from prying eyes – dance and music, the last refuges for gentleness in hardening people, in war.  
  
“I would love to hear you play.”  
  
His eyebrows raise. “Would you let me see you dance?”  
  
Just like exchanging hostages: equal timing, equal significance.  
  
She meets his gaze. “The studios here have pianos?”  
  
He nods.  
  
“You can play and I’ll dance, and then you can just play whatever you like.”  
  
If Solo were here, he’d have the decency to interrupt and keep them from learning too much about each other. But Solo is drinking beer somewhere on a Spanish beach, and there is nothing to keep them from making mistakes at all.  
  
“I have a reservation,” he says. “Studio 12.”  


 

 

  
It takes them the first ten minutes to find their rhythm. His pace on the piano is more frenetic than she’s used to, and she’s too out of shape to be able to keep pace with the beat through her warm-ups.  
  
It’s when he changes tone to a slower languid piece that she moves away from the barre, centering herself in front of the mirrors. The adagios have always been her favorite part of class – she was not always quite so good at the technicals, but the performance she understands. Performing is where she excels.  
  
Illya turns the piano to face her, peering out at her every so often with the appraising eye of an instructor. There’s quick flutters of nerves in her stomach – this feels too close to a real audition for her to be anything but nervous, although she settles in once she begins her pirouettes across the floor.  
  
When she finishes, he waits until she’s given a compulsory bow to the mirror to applaud lightly.  
  
She colors.  
  
“Every dancer needs to hear from the audience,” he says, easily. “Although there were many things to be improved in your performance.”  
  
She laughs, feeling the knots of tension in her shoulders loosen.  
  
“What about you?” she says. “Are you going to play what you wrote?”  
  
He glances at the sheets of paper, then at her face.  
  
“I have never taken composition class,” he says. “I write when there are quiet moments to think about it, the way that the music moves and changes. It isn’t finished.”  
  
“I understand,” she says. “What is it called?” She glimpses at the margin of the sheets, sees a large inkblot in the center of the page.  
  
“Nothing,” he says.  
  
The song he plays is spare and poignant, quiet thoughtful pauses interspersed with building chord progressions and delicate arpeggios, the mood alternating between dramatic and romantic.  
  
She gingerly approaches the piano to watch him play; he settles into the piece, growing more comfortable the longer he plays, his fingers long and lithe as they travel the length of the keyboard, alternating between various positions.  
  
She doesn’t understand piano, but there are far too many things she understands about hands: the spread of the fingers as he shifts between sections of the piano to maintain rhythm showing balance and rootedness, the quick feathery touches of the fingers of his right hand a measure of contrast.  
  
There’s power, dexterity, grace.  
  
Something to understand about him here too – the dualities in which he carries himself, the measure of the people that he is, that he contains within himself. The strength, the force, the driving passion is all there, but so too is the lightness of touch, the finesse, the patience. Hidden softness among the force of the central rhythm.  
  
He strikes an incorrect note towards the end, apologizing as the chord grows discordant.  
  
She waves it off.  
  
He doesn’t pause, proceeding smoothly towards the finish to end abruptly as his pages do.  
  
“That was beautiful,” she says.  
  
He busies himself with shuffling together the loose paper. “It isn’t finished,” he says.  
  
“Still.”  
  
“What I said about your dancing…” he says, haltingly. “There were good parts. It was -- you have a…softness… when you aren’t trying to think about what to do.”  
  
It’s as close to a compliment on her technique as she’s going to get from him. She smiles in gratitude.  
  
“When do you think you’ll finish writing it?” she says.  
  
He shrugs. “Whenever it feels finished.”  
  
“When will it be finished?”  
  
He turns, craning to look up at her. “Whenever I no longer feel like things need to be changed.”  
  
She touches her hand to his shoulder.  
  
He reaches to meet her hand.  
  
A knock sounds at the door before it swings open. “Finished?” the student asks.  
  
Gaby presses her hand to her mouth and laughs.  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
**paris, FRA**

 

  
  
They’ve effectively been relegated to babysitting.  
  
After receipt of a slew of threats against the French defense minister’s eldest daughter, a sixteen-year-old wannabe go-go dancer named Aurelie, they’ve been dispatched to ensure that no harm comes to her in exchange for some very, very charitable amendments to the latest nuclear arms agreement.  
  
The girl is gangly and awkward, face dotted with freckles and overdone make-up, and screams. Constantly.  
  
For Illya, a special instruction is included: _under no circumstances shall any measure of corporal punishment or excessive intimidation be used to coerce compliance._  
  
“Excessive,” Illya says. “I can work with that.”  
  
Solo grins, chewing on the end of a toothpick. “I’d love to see your one-on-one with a sixteen-year-old girl,” he says. “One of you would be crying by the end of it, and, I imagine, not the one you’d expect.”  
  
Illya answers with a dismissive click of the tongue. “And how are your child-supervisory skills, cowboy? Handle children often?”  
  
“Here and there,” Solo says.  
  
“As long as everyone here is agreed that I will have nothing to do with her,” Gaby says, “then this is fine.”

 

 

  
  
  
  
By the end of the first two days, they’re all desperate for the end of the assignment.  
  
Aurelie has tried to break out of their safe room at the hotel three times, successfully escaped due to careless bellboys twice, been caught in compromising positions with waitstaff in the hotel kitchen just once. Even Solo’s beginning to show signs of irritation with her and though they aren’t sure if handcuffing her to furniture would qualify as overly excessive handling, they’ve all given it at least passing consideration.  
  
Gaby feels the barest touch of softness for the girl.  
  
Living under an ever watchful eye invites its own rebellions to answer for its dangers. Sometimes choosing your risks is the only way to prove that you’ve lived, the only way to define your own life outside of someone else’s boundaries.  
  
She remembers.  
  
Matthias in his leather jacket kissing her behind the store, getting drunk with Katarina in the bar and needing to hitch their way back, fighting Anna-Sophia in the school bathroom –  
  
It’s enough to feel like you own yourself. No matter what the risk.

 

 

  
  
  
Eighteen minutes after midnight, Aurelie tries to sneak back into the suite without drawing their attention. She fails.  
  
A minute after that, standing in front of the three of them like a criminal at trial, a spurt of gunfire clicks off from the hallway.  
  
Illya darts towards Aurelie, tackling the girl to the ground as the bullets begin piercing through.

Gaby and Solo hit the ground a second later.

Panting, Gaby crawls on her stomach from her position on the floor towards the door. Across the room, Solo meets her gaze, pressing his finger to his lips and mouthing an order. She nods, pulling the gun free from her side holster.  
  
They wait for a break in the gunfire.  
  
The time ticks down. Aurelie begins sobbing.  
  
Once the gunfire trickles into silence, Gaby reaches above her head to quickly pull the door ajar before sprinting quickly down the hallway in pursuit.  
  
Solo follows.

 

 

  
  
  
Illya’s answer to a crying girl: a shot of vodka.  
  
It’s enough to quiet the sobs into hiccups, and that, at least, he can stand to be around.  
  
“Can you think of anyone who would be trying to harm you?” he asks, already running through the list of possible answers to the question in his head – any member of the opposition party, any terrorist group, any political group that believes that taking her would be an asset towards effecting their cause.  
  
She presses a tissue to her nose, her shoulders still trembling. “Could they really hate my father so much?” she asks in halting French.  
  
He rests a hand against her shoulder gently. “Sometimes,” he says, “fathers don’t consider the things they do for the ways they will affect their children.”  
  
She looks up at him, her eyes already filled with tears. “Will they kill me?”  
  
“We’ve been sent to make sure they don’t.”  
  
Her eyes flick over him – his height, his stern expression – and she seems to relax. “Can I have another?” she says.  
  
He fills the shot glass.  
  
“Thank you,” she says, before bursting into a fresh jag of crying.  
  
The next one he pours for himself.

 

 

  
  
  
  
“We lost them,” Gaby says as she and Solo slink in after two.  
  
“She’s sleeping,” Illya says. “So be quiet.”  
  
Solo smiles. “Feeling protective?”  
  
“She is our mission,” he replies. “To fail her would be to fail, and I do not fail.”  
  
“Sure,” he says.  
  
Illya lifts a small film canister, tosses it towards them both where Solo catches it. “Casings,” Illya says as Solo gives it a rattling shake. “Did you find the shooters?”  
  
“Could only see the backs of their heads as they drove off,” she says.  
  
“You couldn’t steal a car?”  
  
Gaby rolls her eyes. “Oh, of course, I forgot that I could _steal_ a car,” she deadpans. “What do you think?”  
  
“Fine,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “Then where do we go from here?”  
  
She lifts a small notebook from inside her pocket and tosses it towards him. “License and registration.”

 

 

  
  
  
In the morning, Solo’s on Aurelie duty as the two of them head out to track down the lead on the car.  
  
As all leads inevitably do, it takes them to a set of dingy warehouses near brackish water.  
  
Illya has a pair of binoculars, and he notes with tally marks against her notebook the number of stevedores lingering outside the building.  
  
She leans in close against him, straining to see. “Give me those,” she says, snatching the binoculars from his hand.  
  
Peering through the lenses, she scans the freight being unloaded.  
  
“What do you see?”  
  
“Give me a second,” she says, straining out of her seat to lean further out the passenger side window. Her elbow digs against his thigh and he grunts.  
  
“Of course,” he says, with a cough. “Make yourself comfortable.”  
  
“Arms,” she says.  
  
He raises his. “I’m not touching you.”  
  
She shoves the binoculars hard into his chest as she sinks back into her seat. “No, idiot,” she says. “Look at what they’re unloading. They’re arms dealers.”  
  
He takes the binoculars, glancing through them with a sigh. “I hate arms dealers,” he says.  
  
Jamming the gear shift into reverse, she speeds them backwards down the road, jerking the wheel sharply to right them into the direction of traffic.  
  
“We need more information,” he says.  
  
“We need weapons,” she replies.  
  
Gunfire pops in the distance. A bullet cracks the rear windshield.  
  
“Well,” she says, as the gears of the car grind noisily, “shit.”

 

 

  
  
  
She shifts the car into neutral, clambering into the backseat of the car as low to the ground as she can manage.  
  
“What are you doing?” he says, following her.  
  
“They’re trailing us, whoever they are,” she says. “And they know this car. We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”  
  
“And how do you…”  
  
She flings open the rear door. “Ready?”  
  
He sighs.  


 

 

  
When they return to the hotel hours later, Solo blurts, “What the hell happened to the two of you?”  
  
Gaby shakes her head. “I need a shower.”  
  
“We jumped out of a moving car,” Illya replies as she disappears into the bathroom. “They were in pursuit, fired some rounds off. It was the only thing we could do.”  
  
Solo points up at his head. “You have a leaf in your hair.”  
  
Illya runs his hand through his hair, casting the leaf to the ground. “Whatever you think about your shift ending is no longer valid,” he says. Glancing at the girl reading leisurely on the bed, he adds, “We have things to discuss. Later.”  
  
“All right,” Solo says. “What are you going to do?”  
  
Illya glances at his watch. “Right now? Get dinner.”

 

 

  
  
When he unlocks the door and pushes his way back into the room, she’s dancing her way out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped snugly around her body, her hair dripping water down across her shoulders.  
  
He kicks the door shut behind him and she turns with a start. “Oh!”  
  
He colors, his eyes casting over her body despite himself. As his eyes flick up to meet hers, he can’t help but notice the way her lips have parted, how her eyes seem nearly black in the low light of the room.  
  
She steps towards him.  
  
The paper bag in his hand gives a helpless rustle.  
  
He turns his gaze to the floor then, lifting the bags of food in answer. Her footsteps stutter towards the corner where her luggage sits, and then back towards the bathroom.  
  
When the door clicks shut, he finally permits himself to look up.

 

 

  
  
  
She groans with pleasure at the smell of the food as she emerges from the bathroom, toweling dry her hair as she crawls into the chair opposite him. Her pajamas this evening are men’s, navy-striped, cotton. The shirt hangs loose on her, giving him occasional glimpses of her bare skin underneath.  
  
He tries not to think about it.  
  
“Where are they?” he asks, gesturing around the room.  
  
“Aurelie is playing Angélique in the school play,” she says, spearing a potato on the end of her fork. “And Solo’s on protective detail. They left while you were out.”  
  
“Solo, a teenage girl, and Moliere,” he says.  
  
She raises her eyebrows. “I bet he’s enjoying himself.”  
  
They eat in silence, the food in the boxes shared equally between them. She prefers the potatoes and roast chicken; he picks at the bread and stewed beef.  
  
Within a few minutes, most of the boxes are cleaned out, leaving only bones, crumbs, and last pieces.  
  
She’s wiping at her mouth with a napkin when the door handle rattles.  
  
He swipes at his mouth quickly. “Solo has a key,” he whispers.  
  
They both consider the consequences of what he’s said, and mobilize in under a minute.  
  
She darts towards the bathroom, switching off the lights as she goes. The rattling at the door continues, the quiet whir of a drill behind it.  
  
A lockpick, he figures, though he’s more interested to know who would even be trying.  
  
He clears the garbage into the bins, hurling open the closet door as the handle gives another loud rattle. In the pitch black of the room, he can barely see in front of his face. As he reaches for the closet door, he grasps her hip instead.  
  
She collides into him with a quiet grunt, knocking him the rest of the way in, her fingers stretching forward to hastily slide the doors shut after them.  
  
The lights flick on a moment later.  
  
In the small space of the closet, he can feel her breathing against his body, can smell the light fragrance of the shampoo she’d just used on her hair. The slats in the doors are narrow, but she sneaks occasional glimpses, desperate for anything useful.  
  
“It’s got to be here!” someone murmurs in French.  
  
She turns to look at him, and he grows even more aware of how little distance there is between them. He can see the slight color rising against the hollow of her throat, the weight of expectation in her eyes as she studies him back.  
  
She swallows.  
  
He leans close, his mouth brushing lightly over her hair as he mouths, “Any weapons?”  
  
She shakes her head, her body shaking slightly as she presses back against him. He makes a low strangled noise in the back of his throat.  
  
“All right?” she whispers.  
  
He leans down again, catches the shell of her ear this time. “Don’t move. _Please_.”  
  
Her breathing grows shallow, her nods comically dramatic as she tries to still.  
  
A long minute passes with only the noise of rattling drawers.  
  
Turning towards him to say something, Gaby takes a misstep, listing on her feet as she tries to regain her balance. His hand catches her side, anchoring against her hip to steady her.  
  
He can feel the softness of her skin through the thin pajama top, his fingers tracing circles against the spot.  
  
She exhales sharply. “Illya…”  
  
He removes his hand.  
  
“ _Allez, allez!_ ”  
  
The lights switch off a few minutes later, the click of the door following soon after.  
  
They linger in the darkness another moment, listening to each other breathe, before pushing open the doors.  
  
They don’t talk about it.

 

 

  
  
  
  
“Well,” Solo announces as he breezes in an hour later, “spotted really a very clumsy tail while the lady and I were at theater, so I think it’s time for some dry cleaning.”  
  
“We had some visitors ourselves,” Gaby replies. “Picked their way in.”  
  
“That’s interesting,” Solo says.  
  
Gaby glances at him. “Check for bugs,” she orders. “We need the housekeeping rosters and a list of anyone who has a key for our room.”  
  
“They picked the lock,” Illya says. “They wouldn’t do that if they had the key.”  
  
She ignores him, pushing forward. “Tomorrow, you and I need to run the decoy and clean up. Solo?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “Check out the security details that Aurelie and her father have. See if anyone slipped through there.”  
  
Solo lifts a finger in point. “If I may,” he says, “when exactly do I get paired up with someone who _isn’t_ going through puberty? Or is this just a…permanent arrangement?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “The security detail knows you, you idiot,” she replies. “We already have a cover in this city. What sense would it make to change things up now?”  
  
“Sense?” Solo says. “Probably none. But it’d sure be a lot more fun for me.”

 

 

  
  
  
There’s three steps to dry cleaning: the positive identification of the presence of the surveillance team or tail; sourcing to best possible ability the originating agency or organization of said surveillance team or tail; and the decoy run planting false leads. No contact, no dirtied hands.  
  
She and Illya have a sightseeing map of Paris, their wedding bands, and four hours.  
  
Their first stop: the Louvre.

 

 

  
  
  
  
The team is easy to identify: four agents, two of whom follow several yards directly behind them, dressed as businessmen; one matron at the corner newsstand; and another fussing with an infant doll swaddled in a stroller.  
  
She ticks them against his palm with the light taps of her pointer finger.  
  
He meets her gaze and nods once.  
  
“Time to go shopping,” she says.

 

 

  
  
  
They pass into one of the high street storefronts.  
  
She fishes through silk scarves idly as he circles through the store. The door bell tinkles as the woman with the stroller enters, moving to browse the pieces of costume jewelry laid out in cases by the window.  
  
Illya meets her glance.  
  
“Darling,” she says. “What do you think of the white and red dotted one?”  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
She hums with disappointment. “Oh,” she says. “All right. I suppose you’re right.” Another minute spent idly fussing with the scarves. “What about the indigo?”  
  
He examines the scarf, tilting his head in appraisal. “Yes,” he says. “Brings out the color of your eyes.”  
  
She flushes, making of show of locating her handbag.  
  
“Maybe the dressing room,” he says. “I’ll check.”  
  
The shopkeeper gives her an indulgent smile. “We have some beautiful dresses in the back too if _madame_ would like to try…?”  
  
She shakes her head. “No, thank you,” she replies. “As soon as my husband returns, just the scarf.”  
  
Illya returns with her clutch a moment later, fishing the bills out of her bag to hand to the shopkeeper. Once bought, she ties the scarf over her hair, turning to him for approval.  
  
“ _Tres chic, non?_ ” she affects as they pass out of the store.  
  
He pushes the scarf back another inch on the crown of her head. “Sophia Loren,” he says, reaching to slide her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose.  
  
She grins, hunting for the compact in her bag.  
  
Cracking it open, she peers at her reflection balefully before tilting it to reflect the inside the store as they pass down the block.  
  
“You left the package in the room?”  
  
“Taped underneath the seat.”  
  
She grins at him. “Not bad.”  
  
“Only if it works.”

 

 

  
  
  
The two men are harder to shake. Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum seem to be built dull and persistent, and they follow them from yards behind as they cut their way through the tourist stops of the city. Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe.  
  
“If she was working with them,” she says, “they would have gotten the information by now. Why are they still tracking _us_?”  
  
His hand settles against her back as he leads her up the stairs towards the Sacré-Coeur. “Maybe they are not working with her.”  
  
“So who could they be working with?”  
  
“Your compact,” he says. “Open it.”  
  
She smiles warmly at him, drawing it out to examine her own reflection before fixing its aim.  
  
His smile flattens. “Their suits are high grade,” he says. “So unlikely they are with any of the governments. They must be privately contracted.”  
  
She meets his gaze. “To do what?”  
  
The compact lurches as he reaches for it, and she glimpses the flash of a sidearm. Her hand reaches for his, pulling him after her as the first shots ring out against the stone.  
  
“I’m getting very tired of being shot at in this city,” she grumbles as they dart down the steps towards the street. “Who would have thought one sixteen-year-old girl would be worth this much trouble?”  
  
Two bullets ricochet against the corners of nearby buildings.  
  
“They’re right behind us,” he says.  
  
“We can lose them on the street,” she says. “Duck onto the Metro and head back to the hotel.”  
  
“Taking point?” he says.  
  
She grins at him, pulling him down a narrow alleyway and listening for the sound of steps in pursuit.

 

 

  
  
  
  
They pass through a series of connected small streets, cutting a zigzag path through the neighborhood, barely managing to avoid trampling large pools of visiting tourists.  
  
The further they go, the more the crowds begin to thin until the only noises behind them are those of the pursuing men, of magazines clicking into place, of the tinny noise of silenced gunfire.  
  
“We need crowd cover,” she says, slowing to duck into an alcove in an alleyway.  
  
“You would risk collateral damage?”  
  
“Not if I can help it,” she says. “But running in circles isn’t doing anything.”  
  
“The park,” he says. “Nice day like today…”  
  
She nods. “We need to double back.”  
  
He leans out of the alcove, glancing in both directions. “I don’t see them,” he whispers. “Let’s go.”  
  
They spring down the length of the road, rounding the corner just as gunfire nicks the brick.

 

 

  
  
  
It’s just beginning to pass into mid-afternoon when they duck into the park. Around the lawns, dozens of picnic blankets are spread out with families lunching, teenagers drinking, and couples clinging to each other. They jump one of the small divider fences, sprinting down the lawn towards one of the more crowded areas.  
  
She pants, her shoes wobbling precariously as she trots along the soft ground.  
  
He stops suddenly, his eyes darting past her to scan for their pursuers as he shrugs out of his jacket, laying it down against the lawn. He kneels beside it, tugging at the hem of her skirt to signal her to sit.  
  
“Do you see them?” she whispers. Behind her, she can hear the quiet gurgling laugh of a toddler.  
  
He doesn’t answer, just pushes at her shoulder to pin her to the ground as his other hand brushes the scarf off of her head and tucks it into the pocket of his pants. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs as his left hand traces against her cheek.  
  
Before she has any time to ask him _for what_ , he leans down, leg sliding against hers as his weight settles, to press a kiss against her mouth.  
  
Surprised, she stills, her hand tightening against his arm, before she kisses him back, opening herself to his kiss as he angles his head to deepen it.  
  
His mouth is warm and slick, tasting of the bitterness of that morning’s coffee, and she moans softly as he pulls away, his teeth lightly grazing against her bottom lip. His fingers tangle in her hair, tracing light circles against her scalp, as he looks at her with caution and…something else.  
  
It takes her a moment.  
  
Fear.  
  
She reaches up to cup his jaw with her hand. His eyes flutter closed at her touch. “Come here,” she murmurs, her fingers urging him down for another.  
  
She sets the pace this time, determined to commit to memory as much of it as she can – her tongue pushing into his mouth, her nails scratching lightly against his scalp. She slides her tongue against his own and swallows the noise of his quiet moan as he kisses her back, as she grinds her hips against him.  
  
His mouth is surprisingly soft, his movements deliberate and gentle, and all she wants is to take the time to learn what it takes for him to kiss her with hunger, to kiss her until her lips are swollen and pink, until she feels her desire for him coiled so tightly that just the teasing graze of his fingers would set her off.  
  
She can still see so much of his control here – restrained, deliberate, careful - when she wants to see what lies underneath, to know what he does when he can no longer stand to think, when desire has pushed him past his walls.  
  
She feels like she’s there now. Her skin alight under his touch, the thought of the mission slips into a dim haze beneath the feeling of his mouth, urgent over hers, and the brush of his fingers against the skin of her neck, her shoulders.  
  
He pulls away first, though reluctantly, his mouth still grazing hers in short teasing glances.  
  
“Do you see them?” he says, and she slowly raises herself up to sitting, glancing around the park.  
  
She shakes her head slightly. “Do you?” she asks.  
  
“No,” he says. “We should head back while we have the chance.”  
  
She hums.  
  
His eyes are sharp, bluer than she remembers when he turns his glance to her. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Yes,” she says. “Are you?”

 

 

  
  
When they return to the hotel suite, Aurelie has gone.  
  
Solo strolls out from the bathroom in just a bathrobe, face lathered with shaving cream. “Oh, it’s you,” he replies.  
  
They share a glance.  
  
“Where’s Aurelie?” Gaby asks.  
  
Solo only purses his lips, staring quizzically at the space between the two of them. “Interesting,” he says. “What exactly _did_ you two get up to?”  
  
“Solo,” Gaby yells. “Where. Is. The. Girl.”  
  
Solo ducks into the bathroom, and the noise of water running follows a second later along with the rhythmic tapping of the razor against the edge of the sink. “Funny you should ask,” he says. “Turns out the butler did it.”  
  
“The butler?” she repeats.  
  
“Not _really_ the butler,” he replies. “She had her hand in it the whole time, the little brat. Turns out dear old dad wouldn’t let her run off with some upstart revolutionary in tight pants from the Pigalle-St. Georges and so she decided to kill him. And, what I find _particularly_ objectionable, _us_.”  
  
“The detail following us was well-trained,” Illya replies. “You think a girl orchestrated that?”  
  
Solo shrugs. “Probably not,” he says. “But what does it matter? In forty-eight hours, UNCLE will call up the old jet and whisk us out of this over-civilized trap and I, for one, couldn’t be happier.”  
  
Gaby’s mouth falls open. “I need a drink.”  
  
Illya shrugs on his jacket. “I’m going for a walk,” he says, passing out the door and shutting it behind him.  
  
“So,” Solo says, “what exactly _did_ happen while I was babysitting the teenage nightmare?”  
  
She ignores him. “I’m going for a martini.”

 

 

  
  
  
She has always had a system.  
  
Always leave armed. Never mix business with pleasure. When possible, blow off enough steam to be able to show up to work the next day. Radio updates whenever possible.  
  
Simple rules. Easy to follow rules.  
  
Until now.  
  
Her head has been swimming in distraction, in unnecessary complication for months now. Long enough that she isn’t sure how to begin to pick apart the person she was from the mess that’s sipping at her third martini alone at a hotel bar.  
  
There were protocols.  
  
There were things she’d never confess to anyone.  
  
Since Italy she’s been unraveling, and soon, there’ll be nothing left to show for it. And for what? A little flirtation?  
  
She drains her martini and directs herself out the door.

 

 

  
  
  
He’s a block away and approaching by the time she steps outside.  
  
She whistles for his attention, marching up to him directly.  
  
He stops.  
  
“Take a walk,” she says.  
  
“Now?”  
  
“Yes,” she says. “With me.”

 

 

  
  
  
The sun is beginning to set, spilling warm orange light across the water as they walk along the bridges overlooking the Seine, carving a path back towards the cathedral.  
  
He maintains his pace to match hers, watching as she weaves slightly along the path. They walk mostly in silence, her speed a rather quick clip, as if she were impatient to get somewhere, although he still has no idea where they’re going.  
  
“Having a pleasant walk?” he says benignly.  
  
She stops short, spinning to face him, her mouth puckered into a sour expression. With a scoff, she turns back towards the path, muttering a string of German swear words under her breath as she goes. All of them directed at him.  
  
“Wait,” he says. She keeps speeding ahead. “Stop.”  
  
She clicks her tongue with irritation, slowing her pace only marginally.  
  
“Gaby,” he calls, and she stills. “Stop. Turn around.”  
  
She complies, her hands resting on her hips, expression glacial.  
  
“You invited me!” he says.  
  
“I _had_ to invite you,” she replies. “You certainly weren’t going to do it.”  
  
“Do what?” he says.  
  
She shakes her head, walking towards the guardrail with a quiet sigh. Her arms reach for the railing as she peers over the edge, observing the movement of the river and pedestrians walking on the lower level. “Invite me.”  
  
He clicks his tongue. “You’re not making any sense.”  
  
“I’m making plenty of sense,” she says. “We’ve known each other for months and you’ve never so once as explained to me what you’re doing here. What you’ve been doing since Rome.”  
  
He steps towards her, jaw tightening with defensive surprise. “What exactly have I been doing?”  
  
“I don’t even know that much about you besides what I saw in your classified dossier,” she continues. “And so much of it was censored as to be useless.”  
  
“What do you think I know about you?” he says. “Or Solo?”  
  
“You know plenty about me,” she says. “You knew it when you were first assigned to Rome. When I was part of another job for you. Don’t change the subject.”  
  
He purses his lips, turning back towards the street. “I don’t argue,” he says. “And I don’t enjoy riddles. Tell me what the problem that you have with me is, and it will either be fixed or it won’t.”  
  
“I don’t understand what your endgame is,” she says. “Am I – is this just how you and Solo play things?”  
  
He looks up, and sunlight crests between angles of rooftops across the river. Everything cast in bright orange-gold, friendly, warm, inviting. And here they are, by the river in Paris, arguing. “Gaby,” he says.  
  
She forges ahead. “What is it that you want? That you want with me? You’ve never explained anything that you’ve done, and I’ve just let you go on that way, but what happened today…”  
  
He blinks at her. “It upset you.”  
  
She doesn’t answer.  
  
“I apologized,” he says. “It was… necessary. To help us lose them in the crowd cover. It was the only plan I had. They were firing at us.”  
  
Her face slips into blankness. “Was that the only reason why?” she says, her voice calm and even.  
  
His eyes survey her face. There’s a right thing to say and a wrong one in this situation, and he knows that, but he’s never been particularly good at the verbal traps. That’s something for Solo, for the agents who talk more than they fight.  
  
He’s always been a fighter. Bred that way.  
  
He prefers nothing else.  
  
“That was the primary reason,” he says. “What other reason would you be looking for?”  
  
“So,” she says, punctuating the word with an exaggerated swing of her hips, “if I were to come up to you” – approaching him – “and stand this close…”  
  
Her feet nest inside of his. If she were anywhere near his height, they’d be nose to nose. Now they’re chin to forehead.  
  
“And if I do this…” she says, rising on her toes to cup his face in her hands.  
  
He swallows.  
  
She pulls him down for a kiss, her mouth curving sweetly around his before she pulls away. It’s a gentle kiss, less heated than the ones they shared in the park. When he opens his eyes, he finds her glancing up at him from beneath her eyelashes.  
  
“That’s nothing to you,” she finishes.  
  
“What do you want?” he says.  
  
She sighs, moving away from him towards the guardrail.  
  
He keeps his distance.  
  
“I want you to be honest.”  
  
“Honest,” he repeats.  
  
“As much as you can be.”  
  
“Honest,” he repeats.  
  
She hums.

 

 

  
  
He moves in three long steps, pinning her against the barrier as he leans down and kisses her. Swallowing the noise of her surprise as it shifts into a noise of approval, his lips nearly bruise as he deepens the kiss, his tongue flicking lightly against her lips to slide along the tips of her teeth, to taste the acid bitterness of alcohol on her mouth.  
  
Her hands settle on his hips, pulling him closer as she meets him for each movement, her lips soft and demanding against his own.  
  
He kisses her until he’s panting for breath, until both their breathing is ragged and heavy, desperate and gasping. It feels not unlike the first time he fell into the open sea, terrifying and exhilarating and breathless all at once.  
  
He pulls away and she nestles her head against his chest.  
  
“Since Rome,” he says, punctuating his pauses with small kisses, “I have thought…”  
  
She leans up, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his pulse point, sucking gently.  
  
He shudders a sigh, his neck tilting back to allow her more access.  
  
“Me too,” she says.  
  
“This isn’t smart,” he says.  
  
She brushes her hands against his neck, presses another soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “No.”  
  
“What are you thinking?”  
  
She kisses him. Warmly, tenderly. “I think,” she says, “that we have further to go on this walk.”

 

 

  
  
  
They descend towards the water level, their pace slowed down considerably. She walks with her arms at her sides, occasionally brushing the back of her hand against his. Never intentionally, of course.  
  
“Whatever this is,” she says, “it shouldn’t affect the work.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“This could be nothing.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“No one should know until we know whether this is…anything.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She stills. “Are you married?”  
  
“The truth?”  
  
“Yes, the truth.”  
  
“Was,” he says. “Once.”  
  
“Not anymore?”  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
She exhales a shaky breath. “Comrade,” she says, “this may be the dumbest idea we’ve ever had.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She laughs, a breathless ringing sound. “All right,” she says. “Good.”  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**budapest, HUN**

 

  
  
The getaway car is idling like a hummingbird. Ready. Waiting.  
  
The boys are thirteen minutes behind schedule.  
  
Her hands drum a nervous rhythm against the wheel, a litany of negative thoughts and scenarios whirling through her head. She bites the inside of her cheek for want of something to help ground herself when she hears the rhythm of clanging metal and the distant patter of gunfire.  
  
She ducks low, pulling the hat on her head down to hide her face. Reaching behind her, she unlocks the two rear doors.  
  
Two huddled figures emerge from the building, stooped and clinging to each other, sprinting as fast as they can.  
  
The rear passenger door swings open with a groan of metal, and they pile in with quiet grunts.  
  
“ _Drive_ ,” Solo shouts, and she shoves the gearshift down hard, the engine revving angrily as they speed forward, the door still flapping open on its hinge.  
  
In the rearview mirror, she can see an enormous ballooning cloud of flame.  
  
Solo heaves the door shut.  
  
Illya doesn’t say anything.

 

 

  
  
  
After the third stoplight and Illya’s twelfth minute of complete silence, she peers into the rearview to glimpse them.  
  
“Is everything all right?” she says.  
  
Solo lifts his hand. Thumb’s up.  
  
From the back, Illya gives a quiet groan.  
  
She grips the wheel so hard her knuckles whiten, jerking the gearshift and rapidly turning the wheel to careen them down a side street.  
  
“Where are we going?” Solo says. “We need to get back to the safe house.”  
  
“That’s exactly where we’re going,” she says. “We’re taking a shortcut.”  
  
The car rattles its way over the uneven road, and Illya gives another pained groan, more audible this time.  
  
“So are you going to tell me what really happened?” she says.  
  
Solo lifts his right hand in a placating gesture. “He’ll be fine. Just drive.”  
  
She grits her teeth, her foot pressing the pedal to the floor as she urges as much speed out of the car as she can.

 

 

  
  
Their safe house in Budapest is a small apartment in a building with no elevator. When they arrive, Solo has to brace Illya up with an arm to stumble towards the entrance.  
  
She watches them with an anxious eye.  
  
“You need to stick with the plan,” Solo shouts from the door.  
  
She nods, worrying her lip between her teeth as she gets back into the car. The engine roars to life as she jerks the gearshift into gear, swinging rear-first out onto the street and spinning to right herself before speeding down the road.  
  
From Budapest center to their designated car disposal point on route 6 usually averages around a half hour.  
  
She guns the engine for all it can give her, swerving and careening through traffic with the practiced touch of a professional racer.  
  
She makes it in about seven minutes.  
  
Amazing what quality German engineering can get you.

 

 

  
  
At the drop-off, she changes into the Porsche.  
  
She’s meant to take her time here tonight – clean the cars and ready them for easy disposal and disassembly at the garage tomorrow.  
  
What she does is speed off back towards the safe house.  
  
The chop shop work can wait.  
  
The boys can’t.

 

 

  
  
  
Their safe house is in an old industrial-looking building which looks like it’s never been maintained. The interior has wasted away to a sickly looking green; the freight elevator bears a thin metal chain and a sign declaring it out of order; and the mosaic tiling on the stairs has all chipped away.  
  
She takes the steps two at a time, darting up to the third floor and bursting through into the unmarked apartment.  
  
The room is dimly lit from the single buzzing bulb in the ceiling and a bedside table lamp, which casts everything in a sickly yellow. On the lone uncovered mattress, Illya sits with his back propped up against the headboard, sweating, his complexion pale and anemic.  
  
Solo’s stuffing pillows, cushions, folded up pieces of fabric underneath his feet to try to elevate them when she enters.  
  
“You’re back,” he says.  
  
She swipes her hair back from her head. “What _happened_?” she says.  
  
“They surprised us with some .45s. Him more than me.”  
  
Illya’s hands move slowly as he works to unbutton his shirt, wincing all the while.  
  
“How many?” she says, approaching the bed.  
  
“Two,” Solo says. “There’s his right shoulder and one that caught him in the waist.”  
  
She glances up at the flickering light. “Both out?”  
  
Solo nods.  
  
“You know what we need,” she says. “Steal it and be fast. Hand me the whiskey and the bottle of water. And you have a condom?”  
  
His eyebrows raise. “I hardly think this is the time…”  
  
“Shut up,” she says. “Just leave them on the bed, and go get the rest.”  
  
Solo leaves, the door clicking shut quietly behind him.  
  
Pressing her hand to Illya’s forehead, she finds him slightly overwarm, although his body then quickly begins shivering. She unbuttons his shirt, peeling it off of him carefully, before reaching to pull at his undershirt. Dark blotches of red color both and she bites her tongue, steeling herself as the fabric sticks, fighting her efforts at removal near the entry sites.  
  
She wonders just how much blood he’s lost.  
  
His eyes are half-open and unfocused as they look at her. “ _Privyet_ ,” he whispers. A string of mumbled Russian follows, his eyes half-lidded the entire time.  
  
She shakes him lightly, her hand tapping against his cheek. “Illya?” she says. “Illya, stay awake.”  
  
He mumbles incoherently and she runs to pour some water into a glass. Lifting the lip to his mouth, she waits for him to take a sip. Repeats it until he’s sipped down about half of what she’s poured.  
  
“We need to get you lying down,” she says.  
  
He stares at her blankly.  
  
She tries the line in mangled Russian, and he snorts a laugh.  
  
Shifting his weight against her arm, she helps to ease him down to a more reclined position.  
  
He shivers.  
  
Inside his bag, she finds a thin ratty blanket that’s better than nothing. She pulls it free, draping it over him as she takes a seat beside him and waits for the shivers to die down.  
  
His hand reaches for hers, murmuring a quiet phrase that she doesn’t catch.  
  
“You idiot,” she says, thumb brushing over his knuckles.  
  
He clasps her hand, squeezing it weakly as he sighs her name.

 

 

  
  
Solo returns fifteen minutes later with three paper bags full of items. Gauze bandages, medical tape, more water, another bottle of whiskey, and other assorted supplies. She rummages through the bags quickly, picking out what she needs and leaving what she doesn’t.  
  
“How did you let him get shot?”  
  
Solo colors. “When have I ever _let_ him do _anything_? He was in the line of fire, and he got hit.”  
  
“You couldn’t find antibiotics?”  
  
“I picked up what I could. You told me to hurry. I have some penicillin tablets in my bag, I think.”  
  
“I’m going to need you to hold him down if he wakes up while I’m cleaning it,” she says.  
  
“You still remember how to do this?”  
  
“Still remember a lot of things,” she says. “We’re going to need a warm compress for the wound for after.”  
  
“Yes, doctor,” he intones, but even Solo’s voice is missing its characteristic humor.  
  
“All right,” she says. “Here we go.”

 

 

  
  
Her hands shake as she squeezes the knotted condom, aiming the small stream of whiskey against the wound. Illya twists against Solo’s grip, swearing and gritting his teeth, but she manages to wash it out without incident.  
  
They do the same for the wound on his waist.  
  
Even dazed and wounded, Illya pushes back, screaming lines of obscenities as Solo struggles to hold him down.  
  
 “Just keep going.”  
  
The condom full of liquor is exchanged for the one with clean water, and she irrigates as well as she can before bandaging them both. “That’s all I know how to do.”  
  
Solo reaches for her hand, gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Good enough as I’ve ever seen,” he says.  
  
Sometimes she forgets how much he’s seen.  
  
All running, the three of them, from something dark in the shadows.  
  
She shakes out of his grasp. “We’ll see in the morning. Apply the compresses on the wounds. Let him sleep.”  
  
“You should try to sleep, too,” he says.  
  
She sighs. “I’m wide awake,” she says. “I’ll watch him for a while.”  
  
“You should try to sleep,” Solo repeats.

 

 

  
  
  
  
In his sleep, Illya is restless, murmuring words in a slew of languages although he favors Russian.  
  
She watches him with her eyes half-closed, her hands absentmindedly brushing back the sweat-matted hair from his forehead.  
  
In his sleep, he doesn’t stop talking. Sings nursery rhymes and calls her name, barks orders and expletives.  
  
She doesn’t stop. Her hand maintains its rhythm, brushing back his hair, singing fragments of lullabies she remembers.  
  
Solo finds her asleep at dawn the next morning, half leaning onto the bed from her position on the chair, hand clasping his.

 

 

  
  
Illya wakes near noon.  
  
“Cowboy,” he greets, wincing as he tries to sit up.  
  
Solo brings over a glass of water, presses it into his hand.  
  
He tries a sip.  
  
“Gaby?”  
  
“She took care of you last night,” he says. “I’d let the girl sleep if I were you.”  
  
Illya inhales, glancing towards the window where she lies curled asleep. “Chop shop girl,” he breathes. His hand touches the bandage against his shoulder with a quiet wince.  
  
Solo watches him a beat, his glance directing towards the girl sleeping in the window after.  
  
“Oh,” he murmurs. “This _is_ serious.”  
  
Illya frowns, sipping thoughtfully at the water.

 

 

  
  
  
Gaby sleeps through to the evening, waking sleepily when the church bells chime at six. Illya’s still sitting in bed, nodding off here and there.  
  
“You’re awake,” she says.  
  
“So are you.”  
  
“You should know better than to go charging into places when your cover’s been blown,” she says. “Getting yourself shot.”  
  
He shakes his head, patting his uninjured shoulder with his other hand. “Am built strong,” he jokes.  
  
“But not invincible,” she replies.  
  
He grows quiet. “No,” he says.  
  
She stands, her joints popping as she walks towards their pile of things to fetch another bottle of water. Twisting the cap off, she hands it to him.  
  
“Vodka,” he says.  
  
“Water first.”  
  
He huffs, wincing as he shifts to sit straighter. “Couldn’t you just add a splash?”  
  
She rolls her eyes. “No,” she says. “And you might as well stop asking. You’re not getting any.”  
  
He lets his head loll back against the wall. “I thought injury was supposed to have privileges,” he says.  
  
“Not for you,” she says. “Especially not for getting yourself shot. _Twice_.” She presses the bottle of water into his hand. “Now stop talking and just drink.”  
  
“Don’t the cars need to be broken down today?” he says. “We have a tight schedule.”  
  
“I spoke with Waverly,” she says. “He understands. They’ll give us another day.”  
  
Illya furrows his brow. “What do you mean, he understands?”  
  
“I mean, drink your water and stop asking questions.”  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**prague, CZE**

 

  
  
This time, they’re assigned to separate locations, different jobs. _There’s been some KGB pushback_ , Waverly tells her over a secure line, _and we’ve needed to accommodate their policy interests as much as our own._  
  
Illya is being dispatched to Belgrade; Solo, Bucharest; and Gaby, Warsaw.  
  
They aren’t permitted to discuss their jobs or to communicate.

 

 

  
  
  
  
Their flights connect in Prague on the return.  
  
They arrange to meet for drinks.  


 

 

 

  
When they meet at the airport bar, she embraces them both warmly.  
  
They don’t talk about the work.  
  
The dark circles under Solo’s eyes have become more pronounced, and she wonders how much he’s been sleeping, if he’s been sleeping at all. Illya’s lost some weight, the bones of his shoulders more prominent against the thin t-shirt he’s wearing.  
  
There are things they each find unpleasant about the jobs that need to be done, everyone knows that. Not every job is perfect, and not every task you’re called to do is something that necessarily agrees with you.  
  
Still, the mood at their get-together is nothing other than somber.  
  
Illya orders a double vodka; Solo, two martinis. She calls for straight whiskey.  
  
They sit in silence, watching each other drink.  
  
What little they know about each other aside from the work. How little they allow themselves to know about each other at all.  
  
She can’t think of anything appropriate to say.  
  
“Should we go shopping?” she says.  
  
They both glance up at her, mirroring quizzical expressions on their faces.  
  
“I hear there’s an off-duty,” she says. “Finish your drinks, and let’s find some souvenirs.”  
  
“Who do you know that keeps souvenirs?” Solo asks.  
  
She shrugs. “No one, I suppose,” she says. “But we can always give them to Waverly. He’s much too polite to reject them.”  
  
Solo grins, draining the rest of his martinis. “Well, in that case, we’d better find him something suitably obscene.”  
  
Illya cracks a small smile.

 

 

  
  
  
For Waverly, they pick up: souvenir ceramic sugar bowls with painted cartoon figures, a hand-blown glass sculpture of a peacock, a set of wooden Czech alphabet blocks, a box of chocolates, two bottles of vodka, and a pack of beer.  
  
They buy themselves very little.  
  
Given what the job demands, there’s few places to keep souvenirs. Home is not always home, and home can never be guaranteed to be completely safe.  
  
She buys nothing for herself.

 

 

  
  
They circle the upper levels once they’ve finished hunting through everything downstairs.  
  
Upstairs, it seems, is where all the real pleasures lie: chocolates and jewelry, fashion upon fashion, and several high-end wine and spirits stores claiming to specialize in traditional Czech spirits.  
  
Solo ducks into the lingerie store with a wink, promising to pick her up something special.  
  
She pulls a face, waving him off.  
  
Illya looks to her, his shoulders already half-raised as if to ask what else they could possibly want to visit.  
  
She glances across the landing and grins, pulling him by the arm with her.

 

 

  
  
  
“No,” he says, waving his arms. “Enough. I’ve had _enough_ after Vienna.”  
  
“This isn’t a suit,” she says, running her hand along the display. “It’s just a tie. Besides, you look out of place without your usual…” She waves her hand.  
  
He smirks. “My usual what?”  
  
“Starch,” she replies.  
  
He rolls his eyes. “Well,” he says. “Go ahead then.”  
  
She busies herself with pulling tie after tie free from the display, making a show of holding some up to his face, testing the color against his skin tone, against his eyes.  
  
The cashier tries to chime in to assist, but one after another, the ties are presented and cast aside.  
  
The lavender, the red, the violet, the navy, the indigo until she stops.  
  
“Excuse me,” she calls to the cashier. “Do you have a jacket for him to wear while he tries this on?”  
  
He sighs. “Gaby…”  
  
The cashier fusses to check in the supply room but Illya waves her off. Rummaging inside his bag, he finds a sport coat and a dress shirt spattered with a dark stain near the tails.  
  
“I won’t ask,” she says.  
  
“You’re not _allowed_ to ask,” he replies, shrugging the shirt over his t-shirt and lazily slipping a few of the buttons closed.  
  
The sport coat goes on after, and she smiles at him, fussing with the collar as she loops the tie through.  
  
The tie is silk, slick between her fingers as she tucks it underneath his collar. He tilts his head back, quiet as she works on tying the knot, her thin fingers grazing against his throat now and again as she peers at the fabric.  
  
“How was Poland?” he asks. “See the sights?”  
  
“What happened to _you’re not allowed to ask_?” she says, tucking his chin back up with her knuckles.  
  
“That’s not a question about the job,” he says. “How was your room?”  
  
“Oh, grand,” she deadpans. “Had a perfect view. Luxury suite. The works. And how was the weather in Belgrade?”  
  
He looks up as she tightens the knot. “Rained,” he says.  
  
Her hands linger on his shoulders for a minute, fingers trailing down the length of the tie.  
  
“What a shame.”  
  
She takes a few steps back to survey him. The jacket and shirt don’t match, nor, really, do the shirt and tie, but she likes the look of the green. His eyes seem brighter somehow.  
  
“I think I’ll get this for you,” she says.  
  
He raises his eyebrows. “Modern girl.”  
  
She grins, fishing in her bag for bank notes. “Naturally.”

 

 

  
  
  
As she proceeds out into the terminal, leaving Illya to tote the bag with his gift, she spies Solo, carrying four gift-wrapped boxes stacked one right over the other.  
  
He grins when he sees her, proffering one in her direction.  
  
“I’m afraid to ask,” she says.  
  
“Just a gift from me to you,” he says. “Though it’s probably better you don’t open that in public.” At her blush, he adds, “Where’s Peril?”  
  
She glances behind her. “He was right behind me.”  
  
Solo nods sagely. “He has a tendency to do that.”  
  
“And that doesn’t annoy you?”  
  
“If I paid attention to every single thing he does that annoys me, well… ”  
  
She chuckles. “When is your flight?”  
  
He consults his watch. “Twenty minutes.”  
  
“Shouldn’t you be heading towards your gate?”  
  
He pulls a face, shaking his head. “Sandra will hold the plane for me.”  
  
She raises a brow. “Sandra?”  
  
He flashes a smile. “The pilot,” he says. “Of course.”  
  
“How modern.”  
  
He adjusts one of the cufflinks in his sleeve. “Naturally.”

 

 

  
  
  
Illya returns in time to catch Solo before he runs to the gate. She watches, laughing, as the two of them shake hands clumsily before transitioning to a quick embrace.  
  
He trots over to her, glancing nervously at the large terminal display clock.  
  
“Your flight’s not for another hour,” she says.  
  
“It’ll be boarding soon,” he replies. “We cannot all be like Cowboy.”  
  
She smiles. “So is this goodbye?”  
  
He pulls something free from one of the zippered compartments of his bag, holds it out to her. “ _Auf wiederseh'n_ ,” he says. “How’s that?”  
  
“ _Khorosho_ ,” she answers. “I’ll see you back at UNCLE?”  
  
He nods, gesturing towards the box. “For the necktie,” he says, beginning to move down towards his gate.

 

 

  
  
  
  
The box is black velvet.  
  
She cracks it open, the hinge creaking loudly as she does so, to be greeted with a slip of paper proclaiming the authenticity of the Czech garnets inside.  
  
Inside sit a pair of earrings: a pattern of burnished silver atop a teardrop garnet.  
  
She reaches to take them out of the box, knocking loose the slip of paper which lands face-down on the floor. Reaching down to pick it up, she sees light writing in pencil on the back. The handwriting a familiar compact scrawl.

 

 

  
  
  
_consider this anniversary present._  
  
_for my woman, who never accessorizes as often as she should,_  
  
_IK._  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
**kiev, UKR**

 

  
  
When they file into Waverly’s office for their briefing that morning, he looks the worst she’s ever seen him. Which includes more than a few nights she’s had to meet him at the bar, too drunk even to find his way to the floor, and shepherd him home.  
  
Aviator sunglasses sit high on his face, his cheeks ruddy and pinked from the gusting wind outside, looking more nauseated than usual.  
  
“Yes, yes,” he tuts, “Sodding good morning and bugger-all to you as well.”  
  
Gaby takes a seat in the armchair in front of his desk, her legs crossed at the ankle, her sunglasses absent.  
  
“We’ve received a mission request to deploy you to Kiev,” he says. Removing his sunglasses and rubbing at his eyes, he adds, “Unfortunately, the source of the request has insisted that we modify the make-up of the team for this particular run.”  
  
“Modify how?” Illya says.  
  
“I’m afraid the KGB isn’t quite comfortable sending an American to perform this mission in one of its territories, Mr. Solo,” Waverly says, “and they’ve requested that we withhold you from participating. While I’ve dutifully petitioned on your behalf, I’m afraid they’re really rather insistent on this point.”  
  
Solo clucks. “I see.”  
  
“They have also amended their mission to include a mandatory meeting with the local KGB administrative office. For Kuryakin specifically.”  
  
“What about me?” Gaby says.  
  
“I’m made to understand that you’ll receive further instruction inside the Ukraine,” Waverly says. “You’ll liaise with their offices, and Kuryakin, I imagine, will be lead with you as secondary.”  
  
Gaby nods.  
  
“What kind of assignment have they advised?” Illya asks.  
  
“Normally, I’d tell you, but, you see, they haven’t actually advised us much of anything, so I can’t.”  
  
Illya nods. “Understood.”

 

 

  
  
  
Waverly pulls her aside after the meeting. “You should think long and hard about whether or not you’d actually like to accept this assignment,” he says. “UNCLE – and the SIS – are more than willing to permit your temporary release given the safety concerns.”  
  
She blinks. “You’d send him in alone?”  
  
“Without pause,” he says. “Gaby, you’re _our_ agent. The relationship we’ve maintained with the Soviet Union has always been rocky, and it’s certainly not worth losing our investment in you. You’re our agent, and you remain our top priority.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I’d like to go.”  
  
He meets her gaze, his hand moving to rest on top of her shoulder to give it a light squeeze. “There have been reports filtering through to me, Gaby,” he says, “about what’s been…going on.”  
  
She gulps a shallow breath. “What have they been saying?”  
  
“That you and Kuryakin have become rather…personally connected, shall we say.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I know nothing about the contents of these reports,” she says, “but their claims are ridiculous.”  
  
“You’re denying them?”  
  
She raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t realize my behavior was being called into question.”  
  
“It isn’t.”  
  
“Then I’d like to be placed on this assignment.”  
  
“The reports are false?”  
  
“Yes,” she says. “They are.”

 

 

  
  
  
  
Their flight to Kiev is by chartered plane out of East Germany. They are given no further information.  
  
Without Solo, she feels the weight of the mission even heavier on her shoulders.  
  
Whichever teams they’ll be assigned to work with, she doesn’t know them. She hasn’t tested them, hasn’t observed them in action enough for her to know who to float the possibility of trusting and who to avoid completely.  
  
She can feel it hang over his head, too – the iron weight of what they’re returning to.  
  
Of who they’re trusting to lead them safely in and out.  
  
She has never wanted to come back to this side of the curtain. They both know that.  
  
She had a choice, and she made it. They know that too.  
  
She hopes she’s giving him that choice now, too.  
  
A chance to live his own life. A chance for a life outside of endless questions of loyalty and betrayal, outside of the constant testing, outside of the suffocating air and the claustrophobic cities and the idea that nothing and no one can be safe or trusted.  
  
He’s seen the world outside, same as she has, and if she can break him past this wall, if they can manage to handle his affairs with the KGB in a way that makes him eligible for exfiltration, if they can do it –

 

 

  
  
  
  
They have never talked about this.  
  
Never needed to.

 

 

  
  
  
The assignment is delivered directly via courier to their hotel suite (one, singular; beds, double) in a triple-sealed red envelope first requiring a code password.  
  
Once he manages to decrypt the message, he scans the file quickly, sinking down onto the end of the mattress as he reads it.  
  
“What’s the matter?” she says.  
  
He tosses her the file, rattling off their instructions in rapidfire Russian with an irritated grunt.  
  
“You have to slow down,” she says.  
  
“Read it.”  
  
She takes the paper, parsing the Russian slowly against her expanding vocabulary, against the dictionary she keeps at hand.  
  
The pieces come together slowly – _suspected embezzlement, smuggling secrets, given illness, taken to hospital._  
  
She lowers the paper with a shaky hand. “They want you to arrest him?”  
  
He shakes his head. “To arrange enough evidence so that the conviction sticks.”  
  
“But that isn’t all of it.”  
  
“And to escort him personally alongside police so he can be processed for gulag.”  
  
“That’s…” she says, exhaling. Her eyes catch on the sconces, the thin paper glued to the walls. “…the mission.”  
  
He meets her gaze, a resigned satisfaction in his eyes as he nods. “We’ll do what we came here to do.”  
  
“When is your meeting?”  
  
“After we complete our objective.”  
  
She nods, shrugging out of her jacket to toss it onto the other bed. Her shoes soon follow, toed off to be neatly arranged by the foot.  
  
Padding towards him quietly, she tucks her knees on either side of his legs and settles into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.  
  
“Illya,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his mouth and trailing towards the line of his jaw, his neck.  
  
His hand settles warm and weighty against her back.  
  
Brushing her mouth against his ear, she whispers in German, “It’s a test for you.”  
  
He nods, answering her kiss with one of his own. His hand braces her against him as he rolls them over, her legs still hitched around his waist.  
  
Leaning down, he kisses her again, tracking the same trail along her neck. “I can’t fail, Gaby,” he whispers.  
  
“I know,” she whispers. A beat later, she adds, louder, “Illya, we need to work.”  
  
He smiles against her skin, his movements languid and lazy. “Are you sure?” he says, pressing another open-mouthed kiss to her neck. “Solo isn’t here. We may never get the chance to be alone again.”  
  
She groans lightly as he flicks his tongue against her pulse point.  
  
Her smile is a tight, fragile thing.  
  
Rolling them over until she’s on top, she smiles, her hands pinning his wrists down against the pillows. Her hair spills loose, falling as a curtain over his skin as she leans down and grazes her mouth over his. It’s a slow, lazy kiss, all feeling and tongue and softness – the way she likes to remember him.  
  
The way she wants to remember him.

 

 

  
  
The accused man is a local bureaucrat, middle of the chain. He has a wife, a mistress, and three children.  
  
Two boys.  
  
The oldest is eleven.  
  
(Gaby has to hand it to them: whatever anyone says about them, the KGB do at least one thing extraordinarily well – torture.)

 

 

  
  
She has her first nightmare when they’re surveilling the man’s house. Listening to his wife cry at night, listening to his children scream their way through their terrible dreams, to the hollow echo of footsteps against the floor.  
  
She falls asleep thirty hours in.  
  
Wakes up thirty minutes later, disoriented and in tears.  
  
Illya kneels beside her in the cramped van they’re using as cover, pulling the headset free, gently sweeping her hair away from her face as he holds her still against his body. As he murmurs quiet words of comfort to her.  
  
_I can’t stay here_ , she doesn’t say.  
  
_I can’t let them take me_ , she doesn’t say.  
  
Instead, she cries, and he holds her against his shirt. Her tears bloom a wet stain against the fabric like a bleeding wound.

 

 

  
  
Things only grow worse from there.  
  
Illya is made to liaise with the local KGB heads, leaving her to secondary support from the KGB office, if she’s permitted access, which she is on a rare good day, or sticking her in the hotel room if she isn’t, which is more likely. None of the KGB operatives really trust her, choosing to treat her like a provincial foreign hanger-on rather than a capable operative.  
  
She understands.  
  
Trust is dangerous.

 

 

  
  
  
The more time they spend in the Ukraine, the more she sees him drink.  
  
Part and parcel of doing his administrative function in the best way he can manage, she realizes. To avoid it would be more than a slight.  
  
It’d be a dishonor.  
  
So there are vodka shots for the morning meetings, vodka shots for the lunchtime break, vodka shots for planning sessions that run into the late hours.  
  
His body starts to run on the spirit more than it does on sleep or caffeine, and she can begin to see the toll it wears on his face and his body. On _them_.  
  
He rarely speaks to her.  
  
Rarely touches her.  
  
Their conversations become brief and stilted affairs. Mostly in Russian, despite her halting amateur attempts, but sometimes in English.  
  
There is no privacy here, Gaby knows that, but they’re partners and colleagues, and she’s supposed to be a part of the team as much as anyone else. And part of her can’t help but feel uneasy at seeing him slip so seamlessly back into the world he was absent from for so long.  
  
She says _it can’t be easy for you._  
  
She says _i’m here._  
  
He doesn’t say anything.

 

 

  
  
That night, she lies curled up against him in the small bed, neither of them sleeping. Her fingertips drag lightly across his cheek as she whispers his name, as she embraces him.  
  
He turns onto his side to face her, his eyes bloodshot and glazed from liquor. Draping his arm over her shoulder to draw her near, he speaks, his German halting, imperfect, hushed. “Your hands,” he says, taking one of her hands and pressing a kiss to the palm, “are clean.”  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
“They are. What they ask…” he begins, shaking his head. “What they ask us to do here – it’s…” He takes a long shuddering breath. “I need to be…the kind of person…that killed the kind of person that I used to be. Those are my orders. And I will carry them out. For them. For my family’s shame.”  
  
She brushes a hand across his cheek, throws her leg around his to anchor him against her body. “This is one job.”  
  
He meets her gaze, his eyes weary. “No,” he says. “It isn’t.”  
  
She kisses him. A long, chaste kiss. Enough to remind him of other cities, other times; of two men waiting for them in a rainy country with passable beer; of laughter and the freedom to leave.  
  
He kisses her back.  
  
She knows it isn’t enough.  
  
Still, she hopes.

 

 

  
  
  
Gunfire rattles the windows, search lights and klaxons sweeping and echoing through the streets –  
  
She has to go now or else she’ll be trapped.  
  
Buried here.  
  
Better to be shot down on the wall than to die slowly in the DDR.  
  
She wakes with a start, her mind still foggy with sleep as she sprints to her bag, rolling up her clothes, shoving money and jewelry inside her shoes and jamming her feet inside. The window to run is closing, and she has to get out before they –  
  
The lights switch on.  
  
“Gaby?” Illya says.  
  
The gemstones in her shoes jab at the thin skin of her toes and she sinks onto the floor, her body heaving and trembling. A wave of nausea washes over her, and she presses her fist against her mouth. She tries to count. Tries to remember the songs her foster mother used to sing.  
  
The walls are all brick.  
  
The window is small.  
  
Miles away.  
  
Like the world – miles away.  
  
He approaches, coming to kneel beside her as she bursts into sobs.  
  
She can’t do this anymore. Can’t keep doing this to herself. The lion is going to snap its jaws and she’s going to die here, going to get pinned here and never leave, going to get stuck – and none of the things she once was stupid enough to let herself believe would happen with enough distance, enough money, enough lying, are going to happen.  
  
If they’re lucky, the KGB will let them leave.  
  
If they’re lucky, they’ll leave as recognizable versions of themselves. Not the same as the ones that entered, but nothing much worse.  
  
If they’re lucky.  


 

 

  
  
He stands, and she hears the splash of liquid being poured.  
  
“Vodka,” he says, pressing the glass insistently against her hand.  
  
His hand comes to rest warmly against her knee.  
  
She takes a sip and feels its heat burn through her. In the low light of the room, his eyes are dark. Inscrutable.  
  
Tired, she realizes.  
  
“You should have left me,” he says. “I should have come alone.”  
  
Her hand shakes as she takes another sip. “No,” she says, voice cracking. “No.”  
  
She can hear the shakiness of the lie for what it is. He watches her carefully, expression soft, but guarded. There’s no point in lying about something they both know to be true, but she does anyway.  
  
She still cares, and isn’t that the worst part?  
  
“Finish the drink,” he says, “and come back to bed.”

 

 

  
  
They sleep tucked together like nesting dolls, her body locked inside the warmth of his embrace, held against the weight of his body. Her head lies against his chest, and the faint rhythm of his heartbeat keeps time, present and strong beneath her ear.  
  
Illya’s hand traces circles against her back. “They’d send you back if you called Waverly from the embassy.”  
  
She pulls back, meets his gaze with her own disbelieving one. “You think I’d just leave you here? To do this by yourself?”  
  
“They only need to meet with me after,” he says. “The job’s been planned to the last detail.”  
  
“Anything could happen on a job,” she says. “You and I both know that.”  
  
“You should call him,” he whispers. “Get your flight out and leave.” He leans in, his lips feathering kisses against her cheeks. “There’s nothing worth staying for.”  
  
In places like this, everything has its limits: friends, family; even love; even loyalty; even blood.

 

 

  
  
  
The job is done on a Thursday.  
  
She’s confined to her hotel room, assigned a short-wave receiver to track the progress of the mission.  
  
It’s useless, she knows – on a job like this, nothing is transmitted on anything that could be listened to – but she keeps it switched to the advised frequency. Just in case.

 

 

  
  
He staggers back thirteen minutes after three, bleeding from the arm and too drunk to feel it.  
  
There’s a knock against the door as he slumps against the frame, nearly too drunk to speak, words ground down to a thick slur, but she manages to force him upright and into the room. With a grunt, he collapses onto the bed.  
  
She cleans his wounds with the remains of a bottle of vodka, wipes napkins across the deep cut in his forearm.  
  
He grunts with pain, gritting his teeth as he pushes himself up to sitting. His eyes stare out, fixed on nothing.  
  
Reaching out, his hand catches her shoulder, gripping it tight enough to bruise. His breath is all alcohol as he leans in towards her, his nose brushing hers.  
  
“How were you hurt?” she asks.  
  
He smirks, a note of pride in his voice as he says, “The boy cut me.”  
  
“What boy?” she says.  
  
“The son,” he replies. “Took the kitchen knife and...” His fingers drum lightly across the wound, his fingertips pressing into the cut, smearing his own blood.  
  
She reaches for his arm, examining the wound carefully.  
  
He jerks out of her grasp. “It bleeds,” he says. “It stings. It’s how it should be.”  
  
“Illya.”  
  
“I don’t need your help,” he says. “The job is done.” His words slur into a mix of nonexistent syllables as he sinks back down onto the bed.  
  
“Have some water. Your meeting is first thing in the morning.”  
  
He answers her with a violent snore.

 

 

  
  
  
She cleans the wound while he’s sleeping.  
  
Feels under her hand the strength of the muscles in his arm, the callouses against his knuckles, the steady pulse of his blood.  
  
She doesn’t bandage it.

 

 

  
  
He returns from his meeting just as she’s about to double-check the items in her pack a third time. Outside, the sun has yet to rise.  
  
His eyes are narrowed against the harshness of the light when he enters, clutching a paper cup full of something that smells like charcoal but likely passes for coffee.  
  
“Your meeting?”  
  
“Finished,” he grunts, wiping roughly at his face with his hand. “And we have a plane to catch.”  
  
She glances at her bag. “I’m ready,” she says. “What did they tell you?”  
  
“We have a plane to catch,” he repeats, hurling open the door to their room and sweeping out.  
  
She follows.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**london, GBR**

 

  
  
On the flight, she sits with her body pressed against the window, nearly folded against itself as she waits for their ascent. When they push into the sky, she lets out a shaky breath, feeling her heart drum against her throat as she’s pushed back down into her seat.  
  
His laugh is quiet.  
  
“What?” she says.  
  
Across the aisle, he sits with his legs folded, his hand fussing with a piece of paper. “My mother and sisters,” he says, crumpling the paper to shove into his jacket pocket. “The KGB has sent their warm regards.”  
  
She shouldn’t be surprised.  
  
She isn’t.  
  
“How are they?” she says.  
  
“Good,” he says. “They are proud…of my contributions to the cause.”  
  
“The glorious cause,” she says.

 

 

  
  
  
  
In her head, she vaguely recalls the face of her mother. She can barely recall the roundness of her face, the color of her hair the last time they were in the same room together.  
  
Her mother once called her süsse, this she remembers.  
  
Amazing how childhood recollections can amount to so little, can be comprised of sentimental epithets and old lullabies and fairy tales, all commonplace and easily available.  
  
Her family –  
  
A father taken; a mother left; an uncle killed (or, perhaps: another father died, another mother grieving, a brother killed trying to escape).  
  
More than enough to leave behind.

 

 

  
  
  
  
She doesn’t have family anymore.  
  
She has Waverly.  
  
She has herself.

 

 

  
  
  
On the flight, Gabrielle Teller, agent assigned to UNCLE, emerges out of Gaby Teller, girl. Cosmetics are swiped on, hair fixed back into place, sunglasses fished out of her bag.  
  
There’s a strength to sliding on a ring, to pressing earrings through the lobe.  
  
She composes herself.  


 

 

  
  
  
  
Solo and Waverly are there to greet them at the private terminal as they land, their suits pressed, their hands plunged into their suit pockets. Waverly grins, anxiety cleverly hidden in the lines around his mouth and the slight twitch of his temple, but Solo is all genuine happiness.  
  
“How was Kiev?” he asks, arm bracing against her in a strong hug.  
  
She doesn’t look at him, merely pushes her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and forces a smile. “Dry,” she says. “Terrible shopping.”  
  
Solo smirks. “All work and no play makes Gaby a dull girl?”  
  
She shrugs. “Something like that.” To Waverly, she says, “You’ve called a cab?”  
  
“Standard operating procedure, by now,” he replies. “Should try to get some rest. Sunglasses or not, those circles under your eyes are ghastly.”  
  
Her laugh is tinny, even to her own ears.  


 

 

  
  
“Where are you going?” she says, opening the door and ducking into the cab.  
  
Illya shrugs. “Nowhere.”  
  
“Where are you _staying_?”  
  
He peers behind him towards headquarters, shakes his suitcase once.  
  
“You don’t stay _here_?” she huffs. “Waverly would never permit that. A hotel room?”  
  
“I have…” he says, haltingly. “A storage space.”  
  
“A storage space?” she repeats, disbelievingly.  
  
“Keeps sensitive materials. Fits small cot.”  
  
She reaches for his hand, pulling him into the cab after her. “Bethnal Green,” she barks.

 

 

  
  
  
The entrance to her flat requires first cutting through the unit on the first floor – a mechanic’s garage.  
  
She leads, cutting familiarly into the space to peer at the various motors lifted out of their carriages. Everywhere, there seems to be noise: ratcheting wrenches, the noise of automated drills, the occasional hiss of small torches.  
  
“Oy, Alfie!” she calls, and a grease-stained mechanic slides out on a dolly from underneath a car.  
  
“You’ve been gone far too long,” he says, grinning.  
  
“I left my key,” she says. “So if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother…”  
  
Alfie springs to his feet right away, running towards the connecting office to retrieve the keys.  
  
“If you’ve got time later,” he says. “I’ve got a real riddle for you.”  
  
She jangles the keys in her hand as she heads for the door. “Yeah?” she says.  
  
“A Lotus with a few custom engine modifications that’s burning oil,” he says, waggling his eyebrows.  
  
“Don’t make me do your job for you, Alfie. You take enough money from me as it is.”

 

 

  
  
  
When they pass through into her apartment, he toes off his shoes, leaving them by the door with his suitcase.  
  
“Do you want a tour?” she says.  
  
He meets her comment with a dead stare.  
  
“Feel free to look around,” she says, shrugging out of her jacket to toss against a nearby chair.  
  
“How long have you had this?”  
  
She shrugs. “About as long as I’ve been working for Waverly. Maybe a little longer.”  
  
“Storage space is functional,” he says. “Holds the items I need to keep safe. Easily mobile, if I need. This is impractical.”  
  
“I know,” she says, filling a kettle. “That’s the point.”  
  
He arches a brow. “The point?”  
  
“It’s supposed to hurt you to leave it.” The lid on the kettle clicks shut, and she busies herself with switching on a hob. “That’s what home is.”  
  
He hums.  
  
“You can shower,” she says. “Or sleep on the sofa.”  
  
“ _You_ should sleep. You weren’t sleeping much in Kiev.”  
  
“Neither were you.”  
  
“You should sleep now,” he says. She can hear the unspoken line lying underneath – _I can keep watch._  
  
“I don’t feel like sleeping,” she says, switching off the hob. “Want a drink?”  
  
“No,” he says.  
  
“Funny.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head. “Forget it.”  


 

 

  
  
She sleeps through into the late afternoon in a chair in the kitchen.  
  
Waking with a stiff neck and an aching back, she finds her apartment dark, the kitchen and living room empty.  
  
“Illya?” she calls.  
  
“There’s steak and potatoes in the icebox,” he says, stepping into the kitchen and switching on the light. “You must be hungry.”  
  
She stands with a pained grunt, moving to pour herself a glass of water. “And you?”  
  
“I ate,” he says. “While you slept.”  
  
“You didn’t sleep,” she says.  
  
“No.”  
  
She drains her glass of water, removing the dish of food from an otherwise bare refrigerator. “Are you planning to?”  
  
He hums indistinctly, tracking back out into the living room as she pulls a fork from the drawer.  
  
Spearing a piece of steak, she shoves it in her mouth, chewing loudly.  
  
“If you’re out there, you may as well pour me a drink.”  
  
A beat passes, and he asks, “Any?”  
  
“Whiskey,” she says. “Straight. You can pour whatever you like for yourself.”  
  
“No, thank you.”  
  
“Of course,” she snaps, stabbing another piece of potato. “You’re probably all done with that now.”  
  
He returns with a full glass of whiskey, setting it down in front of her with a hard touch. His jaw is tense, his hands clenched in his attempt to control whatever he’s feeling.  
  
“Yes?” she says, reaching for the whiskey and taking a sip. “Sit down.”  
  
“You have something to say?” he says, bracing his arms against the edge of the kitchen table.  
  
She glances down at her food, moves the pieces around the plate. “Why don’t you tell me?”  
  
“You didn’t have to come to Kiev,” he says. “There were more than enough opportunities for you.”  
  
“To come back without you.” Another sip, another hard knock of the glass against the table. Another piece of potato stabbed and shoveled into the mouth. “What exactly do you think of me?”  
  
He narrows his eyes at her. “You stay, and you’re unhappy. I tell you to go, and you’re unhappy. What exactly—”  
  
She drains the glass. “Another.”  
  
“You don’t need another.”  
  
“You’re one to talk,” she says. “Hand me the bottle.”  
  
“No.”  
  
She stands, and he moves to stand directly in her path.  
  
“Illya,” she says.  
  
His arms cross over his chest.  
  
“Move.”  
  
“What will you do if I don’t?”  
  
She mirrors his stance. “Why does it matter to you if I do or not?”  
  
Feinting left, she moves to dart to the right, straining to reach the neck of the bottle when his hand knocks her arm aside.  
  
She grunts, shoving him hard across the chest. “What does it matter to you?” she says.  
  
His mouth sets into a flat line, ticking at the corner. “You don’t want to do this,” he says. “Fight me.”  
  
“Why?” she says, pushing back her hair. “It isn’t as if you’re going to—”  
  
“To what?”  
  
She huffs, spinning on her heel to head back into the kitchen. “Forget it.”  
  
His hand catches her arm, pulls her back towards him. “No,” he says. “Finish what you were saying.”  
  
“Let go,” she forces between gritted teeth.  
  
“Or what?” he says.  
  
Her left hand snaps hard against his cheek, the sound of it carrying through the empty space. His cheek reddens with a flush of color.  
  
He growls.  
  
“Why don’t you be honest with me for a change?” she says.  
  
Stepping towards her, he draws his face near hers. “Honest,” he says. “Like in France? That kind of _honesty_?”  
  
“Fuck you,” she whispers, pulling her hand free of his grip. Her body shakes, tense and rigid with rage, as she barrels her shoulder into him, tackling him to the ground. Scrambling to her knees, she crawls over him, pinning his waist with her knees on either side.  
  
Her hand curls into a fist, her body trembling with heavy breaths.  
  
“Go ahead,” he whispers.  
  
She knocks a heavy punch against him, striking his solar plexus. He wheezes, twisting against the floor as she moves off of him, standing to reach for the bottle.  
  
The kick comes quickly, sweeping against her ankle and knocking her hard against her back on the floor.  
  
She groans.  
  
He takes what advantage he can, pinning her down against the floor with his hips as his hands bear down over hers.  
  
“Finish what you were saying,” he says.  
  
She squirms against him, her legs futile in their attempts to reach any part of him with a kick. “Let me go,” she yells.  
  
He leans down, his face hovering inches above hers, fingers tightening against the skin of her wrist. “Tell me.”  
  
“Let. Me. Go.”  
  
“No.”  
  
She presses up against him, her hips grinding sharply against his as she struggles for leverage against the floor.  
  
He leans his face down towards her. “Stop,” he says.  
  
“You want me to stop,” she says, rolling her hips against his, “then let me go.”  
  
His eyes draw over her face, and she stills, hands going limp under his grip.  
  
Panting with exertion, he leans close, his face hovering above hers for a long beat.  
  
She bites her lip, canting her hips up against his, watching him carefully for any reaction.  
  
It doesn’t take long.  
  
His mouth crushes hers, his tongue sliding roughly into her mouth. She moans, leaning up into the kiss as his hands push roughly into her hair, tangling in it.  
  
Since Paris, it had become a real memory, something to summon whenever she wanted. No matter how much she tried to put it behind her, her mind kept returning to it – the weight of his body on hers, the taste of his mouth, the way he sighed her name.  
  
She’d tried to leave it behind.  
  
He pulls away, his face hovering near hers as he studies her.  
  
“Don’t think,” she says, leaning up to peck lightly against his mouth. “Just touch me.”  
  
His hand brushes against her chin, tilting her mouth up towards him as he takes her bottom lip between his. It’s a slow kiss, his tongue teasing against her mouth.  
  
She pulls away with a gasp, her fingers working at the buttons of her shirtdress. His kisses trail from her mouth, dragging a path along the line of her jaw, down her neck.  
  
“Illya,” she sighs, as his hands help to unbutton her dress. Her mind is racing, and she can’t think beyond this – beyond his hands, helping to push her dress off, beyond the taste of his mouth, beyond the feeling of his hard length pressing against her thigh. “I want…”  
  
He shifts further down her body, his hands and mouth marking each new area of skin he exposes. She groans, her hand tangling in his hair, as his tongue traces lines across her collarbone, as his mouth presses heated kisses over the tops of her breasts.  
  
His thumbs ghost over her breasts, his touch so light as to be teasing, and she whines, her hips rocking against his as her body arches to meet his touch.  
  
Even to her own ears, her breathing sounds harsh and ragged, desperate and wanting.  
  
His hands are warmer than she expects when they skim her ribcage to push her dress aside, as they brush along the sides of her body.  
  
Shifting to sit up, she shrugs out of the sleeves of her dress, unclipping her brassiere to remove and toss aside, before turning to the delicate buttons of his dress shirt. He sucks in a quiet breath at the sight of her, and she flushes.  
  
She’s too impatient for this – has been since the first time she’d pinned him to the floor – and her hands pull too hard, the buttons of his shirt popping off with a quiet noise as she tears it open.  
  
There’s no talking, nothing that passes between them now except for kisses and sighs, moans.  
  
She reaches to drag his mouth down against hers, relishing in the way he tastes, the way his teeth tug at her bottom lip when she pulls away. His mouth is sweet, warm, and all she wants is for him to use it everywhere.  
  
Her hands graze under his undershirt, nails scratching at his muscles as he moans. Skimming her hands underneath the elastic of his boxers, she brushes lightly against his cock.  
  
His eyes slide shut, his head tipping back enough for her to lean forward and suck at his adam’s apple. “Gaby,” he moans. “Fuck.”  
  
“Yes,” she says.  
  
Her hands push his shirt up and he leans back to pull it off and cast it aside. His skin is hot beneath her hands, the muscles firm and rippling at her touch.  
  
His weight urges her down against the floor then, his body shifting over hers as he takes the tip of her breast into his mouth, his tongue laving the bud of her nipple.  
  
She gasps, hips rising off the floor to meet his, as his other hand snakes along her ribcage to cup her other breast, thumbing her nipple. He smiles against her skin as he drags his mouth from one to the other, her hand pulling at his hair as she writhes underneath him.  
  
He pulls his mouth free to press a hot kiss against her sternum.  
  
She reaches for his arm, digging her nails hard into his bicep with a quiet moan.  
  
“Now,” she urges. “I need you _now_.”  
  
She can feel him smirk against her skin, his hands gripping at her hips as he pulls her closer.  
  
“Now?” he says, dipping his fingers down to brush her through the fabric of her panties. “Aren’t you impatient?”  
  
His voice grows low and quiet as he keeps talking to her. Her eyes slide shut, attention barely able to focus on anything besides the slow touch of his fingers circling her clit, coming close but never touching her where she wants. Where she aches to be touched.  
  
Her hips follow the movement, greedy for more.  
  
“Tell me what you want,” he says, and the sound of his voice is enough to make her shudder.  
  
“Touch me,” she whines. “Illya, _please_ …”  
  
“Like this?” he says, continuing the light teasing touch of his fingers. “Or…”  
  
She feels his thumb ghost against her as he pulls her underwear aside and then his fingers are sinking inside of her, long and cool. “Oh, god,” she moans, hips angling to take him deeper. “Oh, Illya, _yes_ …”  
  
When she opens her eyes, she can see how black his eyes are, the pupils blown wide with desire as he watches her ride against his hand.  
  
“Chop shop girl,” he murmurs, his mouth licking a stripe along her neck, “Already so wet.”  
  
She whimpers, her hand grasping for purchase against the floor as he pumps his fingers inside of her, her hips rocking to keep rhythm with him. His fingers move slowly, drawing almost all the way out before sinking back in, offering no promise of release.  
  
“God,” she says, as his fingers nearly slow to a stop, “ _Please_.”  
  
He slowly curls his fingers inside of her, and she gasps, a sharp, desperate noise.  
  
“Please?” he repeats, kissing her as he withdraws his fingers.  
  
“Don’t get used to it,” she says, her hands already fumbling at the button and zip of his pants. He quickly pulls them down past his hips, kicking them off and aside.  
  
His fingers hook in the waist of her panties, jerking them down and off.  
  
“Oh,” she murmurs, “Top drawer.”  
  
But he’s already one step ahead, pulling something out of his pants pocket. There’s the loud noise of the wrapper tearing and then, he’s bracing his weight on one arm as he reaches down and guides himself into her.  
  
“Fuck,” he swears as he pushes inside of her.  
  
She shudders, her legs wrapping around his waist. “Oh, yes,” she moans as he pushes fully inside of her. “Stay there.”  
  
He stills, allowing her to adjust to him, to set the pace.  
  
“Ready?” he says, brushing his mouth against hers.  
  
She rocks her hips in response, relishing in the quiet groan she draws from him. His movements start slow, drawing himself out nearly completely before driving back in.  
  
“Oh,” she groans, as he runs his teeth along her throat. “God, Illya...”  
  
Her heel digs hard against his thigh and he obliges, speeding his thrusts as he slams against her quick and hard. He grunts, his hands sliding under her hips to lift her to meet him as they settle into a rhythm.  
  
She moans his name, her head knocking against the floor as he drives into her, his fingertips digging hard against the flesh of her hips.  
  
Her nails scratch along his shoulder as she pulls him down to kiss her. The weight of his body a pleasant heaviness pinning her against the floor, pushing her breasts against his chest with every movement.  
  
“Gaby,” he murmurs.  
  
She can feel the familiar tension gather low in her belly, her hips pressing up to urge him deeper with every thrust. “Yes,” she moans.  
  
His pace quickens, head dropping against the crook of her neck with a sigh.  
  
“Gaby,” he moans, as she draws her leg up to drive him deeper.  
  
“I’m so close,” she whispers. “Right there… _harder_ …”  
  
He bites down against the skin of her shoulder as she reaches down to touch herself.  
  
She comes with a sharp whine, her muscles clenching around his cock as her body trembles.

 

 

  
  
  
After the logistical concerns have been dealt with – the condom disposed of, the clothes cleared off of the floor, the two of them crawled underneath the blankets in her bed – there’s silence.  
  
It isn’t embarrassment, really – she’s known him for far too long to have any embarrassment left – it’s just that she isn’t sure how to move on from here. There are right things to say and wrong ones, that she knows, but it’s hard to tell one from the other when an argument precipitated the whole thing.  
  
There are plenty of things neither of them have said that have led here.  
  
He turns towards her with an almost sheepish expression.  
  
The curtains in her bedroom are light yellow, bright and cheerful. Late sun still peeks through, casting light across the tops of his cheeks.  
  
“We should do that again,” she says.  
  
He chuckles, leaning in to kiss the tip of her nose. “We will,” he says.  
  
She smiles. “Should have done that sooner.” She reaches out, smoothing his hair back with her hand. His eyes flutter shut at her touch.  
  
“What did you mean,” he starts, “Before?”  
  
Her hand stills. “Do we have to talk about this now?”  
  
“You don’t think I’m going to stay,” he says, and it isn’t a question.  
  
Her fingers move to play with the short hairs along his hairline. “How can you? Your assignment here was always limited. You’re sent where they want you.” She swallows, her voice growing quiet. “I know you. You wouldn’t leave them. Not even after all this. So you’d leave us.”  
  
“Gaby.”  
  
Her hand moves to cup his face as she leans in to kiss him. “It’s all right,” she says. “I’m used to it.”  
  
“Gaby,” he says, more firmly. “I wouldn’t leave you.”  
  
“You’ve been in this long enough,” she says. “You should know better.”  
  
“I would never,” he says, punctuating each word with a kiss. “Leave you behind.”  
  
She leans up into his touch, opens her mouth and lets his tongue brush against hers.  
  
_you will_ , she thinks.  
  
_but i'm used to it_ , she thinks.  
  
_you can’t hurt me._

 

 

  
  
Their first time in her bed, the pace is slower, less frenzied.  
  
She crawls down his body, takes him into her mouth for the first time, tastes the salt of him on the back of her tongue. His hands tangle in her hair, Russian falling from his mouth near nonstop as she hollows her cheeks, drawing her mouth up and down over his cock, swirling her tongue across the head. His hand settles against the crown of her head without pressure, his hips arching up against her mouth.  
  
He returns the favor, burying his head between her legs, his tongue moving slowly and deliberately against her, fingers prying her open to taste her. He uses the flat of his tongue, uses the point of it to trace lines against her, licks around the fingers he dips inside of her. She rocks her cunt against his mouth, gripping his hair with a gasp as she comes.  
  
Their second time together, she controls the pace. Keeps it slow and deliberate so she feels every inch of him sliding inside of her with every movement. He kisses her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelashes, sighing her name as she draws him inside of her, meeting her every movement with one of his own.  
  
His body learns to be comfortable with hers – the sharp angles and bony joints tucked in, carving a space for the softness of her body, his arm nestled against her back as she throws a leg between his.  
  
They sleep like that, holding each other, intertwined, for a few hours.  
  
Gaby doesn’t dream.  
  
Illya sleeps.

 

 

  
  
  
They have four rest days until they’re relegated back to duty.  
  
They don’t rest very much at all.  


 

 

  
  
The day they return to UNCLE, Solo eyes them both with unbridled curiosity that breaks into an unrestrained grin.  
  
“I guess foreign policy isn’t always about speaking softly and carrying a big stick,” he quips.  
  
She knocks him hard against the back, water splashing out of his glass and onto his shirt. “Oops,” she says.  
  
“You know,” Solo deadpans, dabbing at the spot with a napkin, “it’s things like that that almost make a man _suspicious_.”  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**reykjavik, ISL**

 

  
  
They learn to savor their mornings.  
  
Before the doorbell chimes, before the phone rings, before either of them are called to rendezvous, debrief, or anything else, they have this: soft-boiled eggs and toast, fresh coffee, sunlight and the rustle of newspaper.  
  
She loves their mornings together, loves the things it tells her about him, loves the slivers of the possibilities of a life it shows. There are days she rests her bare feet in his lap as he picks his way through the newspaper and she busies herself with the sport section; other days when her feet rest on top of his and they both fuss with files and briefs; and days when they don’t bother with work at all, when his hands in her hair and her mouth slanting over his are enough to forget breakfast, forget work, forget the world outside.  
  
Sometimes she wakes before he does; those moments, she savors the most.  
  
Asleep, he looks unburdened. Comfortable.  
  
Safe, she thinks. Resting where nothing – no one – can touch him.

 

 

  
  
  
The morning they’re scheduled to leave for Iceland is an inefficient one. They’re still lying in bed ten minutes after the alarms go off – ten minutes a comparative luxury given the rigid quality to their workday mornings – his hand resting lightly over her bare hip, scratching lightly.  
  
He leans into her, his mouth brushing against the tips of her shoulders.  
  
“We should get out of bed,” she says. “Can’t miss our flight.”  
  
He answers by pressing a wet kiss against her neck.  
  
She tilts her head to allow him better access, sighing softly. “I mean it,” she says. “We almost missed the briefing two weeks ago.”  
  
He mumbles, scraping his teeth lightly against her skin.  
  
“Stop it,” she says, pushing herself out of bed.  
  
He leans back against the pillows, watching as she darts around the room, picking spare pieces of clothing off the floor to toss into the laundry basket.  
  
“Are you planning on moving any time soon?”  
  
He smirks, his eyes flicking over her naked body with open admiration. “You should come back to bed,” he says.  
  
“No,” she replies, grinning. “Don’t tempt me.”  
  
As she passes towards the armoire, his hand snaps once against her ass. She yelps, swearing, turning to find him with the covers pulled up to his neck, body trembling with quiet laughter.  
  
She tackles him hard against the bed, her hands pressing down against his chest to keep him from moving. “I’m going to kill you,” she says.  
  
“Okay,” he replies, “but if you kill me, we’re definitely going to be late.”  
  
“ _Arschloch_ ,” she growls.  
  
He affects a voice. “ _Lyubimaya_ …”  
  
She leans down, pecks a kiss against his mouth. “Come on,” she says, moving to shift off of him. “Let’s go.”  


 

 

  
  
Their assignment in Reykjavik is simple reconnaissance – a two-man job, really, though they rarely travel without the third unless they absolutely need to.  
  
There’s a chartered flight to Iceland, an adulterous British attaché with a caviar habit, and classified military defense documents allegedly for sale: it’s a simple honey trap, grab and go.  
  
The boys get their lockpicking equipment, their microcameras, and she gets her favorite evening gown – red silk, low back, v neck – and a free date.  
  


 

 

  
It’s a long enough three hours.  
  
The good captain is very forward with his hands, to say the least, and she’s been grabbed, groped, and pinched in more than three places that evening. He even tries a kiss, his tongue thick in her mouth, his breath reeking of chewing tobacco.  
  
The entire time, her mind wanders, estimating how many swipes with the toothbrush it’ll take to rid the taste of it from her mouth.  


 

 

  
  
  
  
After her date finishes – around 1:30 in the morning – she meets with them on a rooftop adjacent to the hotel.  
  
The stars are out in full, the air chill. Her dress is too thin to retain any heat, and the boys casually offer her their jackets, which she layers over herself as they peer through the obtained documents.  
  
Her part of the job done, she sits against the floor of the roof to watch them both work. Solo with his glasses on, carefully matching their recovered documents against a source file detailing its contents; Illya scrolling through photos in his hands, scanning each carefully.  
  
She toes off her shoes, wiggles her feet in the brisk air, and leans back, observing the sky.  
  
A brief and flexible band of light stretches across moments later.  
  
“Look!” she cries, and they both pause, glancing up at the sight.  
  
It takes her breath away.  
  
Even the boys, too, fall into silent reverence.  


 

 

  
  
They finish up within two hours. Exhausted, cold, and hungry, but finished.  
  
The papers are packed into their sleeves, sleeves tucked inside jacket pockets and into briefcases.  
  
Illya waits with her on the roof as Solo continues packing. She crosses her arms and waits, her head still tilted towards the sky, waiting for a last glimpse of a streak of light.  
  
He wraps his arms around her from behind, his arms bracing against her ribs as he sways from side to side.  
  
Neither of them say anything.

 

 

  
  
  
She twists in his grasp, wrapping her arms around him in an embrace, tucking her head against his chest.  
  
He brushes his hand affectionately over the crown of her head.  
  
_This isn’t yet goodbye_ , she thinks.  
  
_Yet_ , she thinks.  
  
Her entire life has been written around the threat of loss, the reality of it, the pain of its grief, and still – something about this feels different. She’s spent too much time with him, maybe; they have known each other too well, perhaps; they are built too much the same and he’s planted himself in the places she never granted access.  
  
Whatever the reason, she can already feel the pain of losing him. Even here. Even now.  
  
“What’s the matter?” he asks.  
  
She peers up at him, the sky overhead dark and glistening. “The lights,” she says, “they pass so quickly…”  
  
He kisses the crown of her head. Presses his hands to her face and draws her in for a long, searching kiss. Says nothing else.  
  
“The lights are unpredictable,” he says. “But they always come.”  
  
She presses her cheek against him, her eyelashes fluttering lightly against the fabric of his shirt. Thinks about whispering the words, thinks about making them real enough to say.  
  
Her hand reaches for his wrist, closes around it.  
  
A last lash of the lights flies across the sky, yellow and bright green.  
  
“See?” he says.  
  
She nods. “They come,” she says, as the lights flicker and wind into darkness again, “and they leave again. It’s their nature.”  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**new york, USA**

 

  
  
All good things come to an end, the saying goes; all good things in government end even sooner.  
  
The order comes in three months after Reykjavik: Solo to be returned to regular duty with the CIA; Gaby to return to her department within MI-6; and Kuryakin to be dispatched immediately to Moscow.  
  
“The money just never goes as far as you think it will,” Waverly cracks, packing his office into a series of filing boxes.  


 

 

  
  
They’re given five weeks to dismantle operations.  
  
They shepherd Solo to America instead.

 

 

  
  
  
It’s a surreal place – New York City. Nothing quite like it looks on all of the postcards and films.  
  
The buildings are tall, the crowds noisy, but the beauty strikes her as being between things – pockets of the dirty and grungy set against spire buildings that reach up into the sky, groomed parks, and open water.  
  
Solo even does his civic duty and takes them by ferry along Liberty Island.  
  
“It’s a French statue,” Illya intones.  
  
“Fine, but it _represents_ America,” Solo replies, rolling his eyes. “Besides, everyone knows that if we weren’t there, France wouldn’t even be a country anymore.”  
  
She waves her hand dismissively. “No one likes France,” she says.  
  
They both shrug.  
  
Leaning against the railing on deck, she glances up at the statue, tinted green, the torch held high in the air.  
  
The story is real enough to believe in, the myth strong enough to want to believe in it.  
  
“America the beautiful,” she says.  
  
Solo claps his hand to her shoulder. “That’s the spirit,” he says. “What about you, Peril?”  
  
Illya shrugs. “It’ s a nice statue,” he says. “Good proportions.”  
  
Solo barks a laugh. “You know, Peril,” he says, “I think I might even miss you.”  
  
Illya smiles.  


 

 

  
  
Their last night in New York, they all arrange to get dinner with Waverly.  
  
_A last hurrah_ , Waverly says.  


 

 

  
  
She swings by his suite at the hotel an hour before dinner, her dress for the evening more understated than usual -- simple, short, and black with a gold necklace.  
  
He greets her while on the telephone, moving the cradle and receiver into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.  
  
She fixes herself a drink.  
  
“You’re early,” he says when he returns.  
  
She sips at her whiskey. “I found something,” she says. “Something I wanted you to have.”  
  
He tilts his head, curious.  
  
“Hold out your hand,” she says.  
  
When he does so, she presses it into his palm, the metal cool against her fingertips.  
  
“What is it?” he says, reaching for it.  
  
“The ring,” she says.  
  
His eyes level with hers, reflecting nothing.  
  
Her smile is tremulous, delicate. “In case I need to find you.”  
  
She sighs as his arm braces against her back to draw her against him. She kisses him, a quiet, tender kiss, her heart thudding so heavily in her chest she almost cries.  
  
“Chop shop girl,” he murmurs, and something inside of her cracks and spills like wine across carpet, warm and thick and staining.  
  
“Illya,” she says, pressing her cheek against the front of his chest. “I wanted to tell you…”  
  
He leans down, tucks his chin against the crown of her head.  
  
His skin is warm underneath her touch, the light thud of his heart faintly audible. She swallows.  
  
“Yes?” he says.  
  
The words are supposed to be easier now, having been considered and rehearsed a dozen times before; the words are supposed to feel truer now that she isn’t living behind a wall.  
  
_If I still believed in a thing like love_ , she thinks, _maybe_ …  
  
But no.  
  
Even that sounds false to her ears.  
  
There’s a simple truth she keeps walking around, talking around –  
  
“I wanted to tell you to take it with you,” she finishes. “The ring.”  
  
His eyes stay focused on hers. “I understand,” he says.  
  
She gently steps out of his grasp, wiping at her eyes as she paces in the small space in front of the door. “We should head down to dinner,” she says.  
  
“Wait,” he says, turning towards his luggage. “You are not the only one who has something to give.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Hold out your hand,” he says, echoing her earlier words.  
  
When she does so, he sets against her palm another small, cool piece of metal. A small gold ring with a piece of green-and-black opal.  
  
“It doesn’t have the history,” he says, “but it’s – so you can always have the lights. Even when you can’t see them.”  
  
He lifts it from her palm, slides it slowly onto her middle finger.  
  
She exhales a shaky breath. “Does it have a tracker?” she asks.  
  
His smile is thin. “Maybe.”  
  
“Thank you,” she whispers.  
  
His hand closes lightly over her own. “Take it with you.”

 

 

  
  
  
Their goodbyes at the airport are brief.  
  
She embraces Solo, kisses him on the cheek, tells him where she’ll be staying in London.  
  
Solo and Illya shake hands, clapping each other on the back once in a quick embrace.  
  
She kisses Illya on the cheek– he presses his thumb against the pulse of her wrist – and they both struggle to think of the right words to say.  
  
“Stay safe,” she manages.  
  
He tips his head, and the light spills onto the thin silver chain around his neck. “Be careful,” he says.  
  
Her voice doesn’t crack once.  


 

 

  
  
Waverly sits with her as they watch the planes depart.  
  
He turns to her with a concerned glance, reaching to give her hand a squeeze, but avoids asking.  
  
She hates that about him: he has never asked.  
  
Not that she would even know what to say.  
  
_i've made a mistake_ , maybe. Or, _i might never see him again_.  
  
The one thing closest to the truth – _it feels like i’m learning to run all over again. like i’ve forgotten how to pack to leave behind._  
  
She says nothing.  
  
Watches the planes and bites down hard enough on her tongue to cut.  
  
  


 

 

 

 

  
  
  
**havana, CUB**

 

  
  
They reconvene in Cuba six months later.  
  
He looks thinner, more exhausted, but he smiles when he sees her. Her hair has grown longer, still tinted red from when she dyed it for a job months ago.  
  
His hand cups her face. “You look different,” he says.  
  
She tilts her head. “Better?” she says, “Or worse?”  
  
He leans in, kisses her softly. “Different,” he says.  
  
“Where are you staying?”  
  
He glances down the street, but doesn’t answer.  
  
Slinging her handbag strap further up her shoulder, she nods in the opposite direction. “I have a hotel suite,” she says. “Do you want to see it?”  
  
She doesn’t wait for an answer, just starts walking.  
  


 

 

  
In the hotel room, they reacquaint themselves with the intimate secrets of each other’s bodies again.  
  
There are new bruises and new scars to be mapped on his body, to be traced with the tip of her tongue, tasted against her mouth, memorized with the tips of her fingers.  
  
He follows the new lengths of her hair with his fingers, kisses the lines that have started appearing around the corners of her eyes, her mouth. Kisses the ring, too – the black and gold stone cool beneath his lips.  
  
She fingers the chain of his necklace, hooking her finger against it until the ring sifts up like debris, the tracker inside it long dead.  
  
Their first time is clumsy and rushed, colored by the stretch of distance and time.  
  
His body holds hers against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist as he sinks inside of her; her body aches, stretching to adjust, to remember how they once fit together.  
  
He pants her name as his thrusting settles into a rhythm, and she digs her nails hard into his shoulders, bites down against his neck, marking him with every chance she has.  
  
He comes first, and she holds him against her for a moment, just listening to his ragged breathing against her own.  
  
When he lets her down, her thighs are sore and aching, barely able to keep her upright.  
  
“Like riding a bicycle,” he deadpans.  
  
Her hand lightly swats at him.

 

 

  
  
  
They don’t talk much about what’s happened in the time in between. There are other things that demand their attention – he cuts in and out of their visits when he’s attending to work, and she spends the time wondering whether or not any of this was wise.  
  
She has a month and a half break, she knows that. Everything else seems to be in question.  


 

 

  
  
“I thought,” she says, half-splayed out of bed one night, midway through a cigarette, “about leaving. Packing it all up again and telling Waverly that I’d moved.”  
  
Illya lies back against the headboard, scratching his head. “How is Waverly?”  
  
“Older,” she says. “Not really wiser.”  
  
“Where would you go?”  
  
She leans back, crossing her legs behind her in the air. His hand is a warm weight against her bare thigh. “Somewhere nice and unaffiliated,” she says. “Where I don’t have to be found if I don’t want to be.”  
  
He leans down, brushes a kiss against the expanse of her back. “Your own private island?”  
  
“No,” she says. “Just a house, maybe. An apartment. Small. By the water, or in the woods.”  
  
She stubs the cigarette against the tiled floor, twisting to sit back up in bed. “What about you?”  
  
He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter?” she says. “Where you live, it doesn’t matter?”  
  
His fingers skim against the jut of her ankle. “No,” he says. “Only who else is there with you.”  
  
She hums.  
  
“Would you?” he says, after a beat.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Go.”  
  
His hand brushes up her calf, tickles lightly behind her knee.  
  
“I didn’t leave the DDR to be prisoner somewhere else,” she says. “I want the chance.”  
  
“The chance?”  
  
“To be free.”  
  
He quiets.  


 

 

  
  
Part of her still wants to believe that the odds can be beaten, that despite politics and government, despite themselves, despite walls and history and boundaries, they can make it out of this alive. The two of them. Together.  
  
She never was very rational.  
  
Knowing that doesn’t make it easier to change.

 

 

  
  
  
She makes a choice:  
  
She charters a boat. Calls Waverly.  
  
The man even has the decency to pretend to be surprised.

 

 

  
  
  
Illya watches as she packs her clothing back into her bag that night, as her life is condensed once more into separables.  
  
The items of her life, to be sifted through and decided upon.  
  
What’s left to be done but another goodbye, another indefinite absence, another long pause?  
  
He says, “Where are you going?”  
  
She shrugs. “Somewhere else,” she says. _There’s a whole world_ , she thinks, _and I can’t be chained to one part of it._  
  
He reaches for her hand, grips her wrist instead. “Gaby.” Her name, holding urgency, holding patience and regret and everything that followed her from one country to another, past one wall and into another.  
  
“You don’t need to say it,” she says. “Whatever it is, I’ve – I don’t need to hear it.” The unspoken: that she’s heard it already, far too many times.  
  
He knows.  
  
He hears.  
  
“What time are you leaving?” he asks.  
  
“Does it matter?”  


 

 

  
  
Their last kiss isn’t a goodbye or a see you later, it’s an incompletion, like counting down to a thunderclap after a strike of lightning.  
  
Already there’s distance in his restraint, in the delicate way his fingertips graze against her jaw, just as there’s already the promise of reunion in its subtle hunger, in the way he tilts his head and licks against her mouth, in the way her hands run through his hair.  
  
“Gaby,” he says, neither goodbye nor hello.  
  
Her hands cup his face. “Illya.”

 

 

  
  
  
At 8:35p local time, two minutes before their scheduled departure time, there’s news of something happening down on the dock.  
  
She runs out onto the deck, stopping short when she sees him, his hair messy, clothing wrinkled, standing with one foot on the dock and one on the boat.  
  
“You’re holding us up,” she says.  
  
“I know,” he says. “I don’t…”  
  
“We have a very tight schedule,” she says, “with the harbormaster.”  
  
He scoffs. “They’ll let you through now or two minutes from now.”  
  
“Illya,” she says. “What do you have to say now or two minutes from now that can’t wait?”  
  
His hand swipes hard against his mouth. He doesn’t move closer. “I don’t…want you to leave.”  
  
“You know you can always find me,” she says, “whenever you want to.”  
  
“Gaby.”  
  
“Illya,” she says, dusting her hands against the skirt of her dress, “you can’t – you aren’t going to come with me. You know that. I know that. They’d find you, and they’d kill you. But that isn’t even what’s keeping you. They don’t want to let you go, but you don’t want to leave. So don’t hold me up when you already know what choice you’re going to make.”  
  
A long silence hangs.  
  
“It isn’t a choice,” he says.  
  
“I know,” she replies, “but you chose it anyway.”  
  
He nods, his jaw tight with the motion, and she watches as he carefully steps back with both feet onto the dock.  
  
The skipper casts off, the boat drifting lightly.  
  
“Come find me,” she calls.  


 

 

  
  
Eight months later, and she’s living in a cottage in the British Virgin Islands. Waverly has called twice, Solo three times.  
  
The fish are fresh here, the water crisp. Even the garages pose an interesting challenge.  
  
The home she makes is tiny, spare. There are stacks of books for company, broken cars for the comfort of hard work, a tiny kitchenette, and stacks of firewood. It’s enough.  
  
She doesn’t need much. Doesn’t ask for it.  
  
Maybe it isn’t forever, but it’s right now. A new page.  
  
She even writes herself a new name – Gabriela Bauer.  
  


 

 

  
  
Eight months later, and someone drives their car – with a dead muffler and a few misfiring cylinders, it sounds like – into her garage.  
  
There’s the slam of a door and then, a sloppy appraisal of the mechanical work in stilted accented German.  
  
She slides out from underneath the car and he’s standing there, suit sleeves rolled up to the elbows, looking deliciously out of place.  
  
“What are you doing here?” she asks, standing to wipe her hands on a rag.  
  
“I found you,” he says.  
  
“How long are you staying?”  
  
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”  
  
“What do you mean you don’t know?”  
  
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls free a small folded slip of paper and hands it to her.  
  
Unfolding it, she finds his obituary. _Found dead, Calzada de Vento, respected Soviet military leader…_  
  
She refolds it, tucks it into her pocket. “So who are you now?”  
  
He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “Illya Nikolaevich. My father’s son.”  
  
She extends a hand for him to shake. “Gaby Bauer. My mother’s daughter.”  
  
“Gaby,” he repeats.  
  
“Illya.”

 

 

  
  
  
Her house lies half a mile from the garage, just down the road. She says this between kisses when her hands are smudging grease and motor oil against the front of his shirt.  
  
He says, _take me there._  
  
She says, _all right._  
  


 

 

  
  
She says, _let’s go home._  
  
_home_ , he says.  
  
The word is round and full, and rings like bells.  


**Author's Note:**

> This initially started out as an idea about building a fic kind of symphonically in ten movements, and it all...spiraled and became this. Thank you to all my friends who had to hear me complain about this forever, and to Michele, who read this over and assuaged my many anxieties about this.
> 
> Explanatory notes:
> 
> [a] Most of the spy terminology here is gleaned from the dictionary from the International Spy Museum. 
> 
> [1] burned: when a case or agent becomes compromised.  
> [2] dead drop: a secret location where materials are left for another to retrieve.  
> [3] black bag: secret entry into a home or office to steal or copy materials.  
> [4] Uncle: Headquarters.  
> [5] C3: Command, control, and communication.
> 
>  
> 
> [b] The SIS is the full name for the organization encompassing MI-6, meaning Secret Intelligence Service.
> 
> [c] Очи чёрные (ochi chornye, lit. Black Eyes) is a famous Russian song which also apparently makes for a pretty good waltz.
> 
> [d] Alte Füchse gehen schwer in die Falle. (lit. "Old foxes go difficult in the trap.")
> 
> [e] Arschloch: asshole
> 
> [f] Kalinykhta: good night
> 
> [g] DDR - abbreviation for the Deutsches Demokratisches Republik, or the Democratic Republic of Germany aka East Germany.
> 
> [h] suesse - sweet (as a term of endearment)
> 
> [i] lyubimaya - darling
> 
> Title is from The Feeling song, _Blue Piccadilly_.
> 
> The Kings of Leon song referenced in the epigraph is _Cold Desert_.


End file.
